
r«fr. 










I T *> 



ODD 








Rnnk ,u(o 



\<S1iS 




A 

COMPARATIVE VIEW 

OF 

THE SOCIAL LIFE 

OF 

ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 

FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES THE SECOND, 
TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



London : 

Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, 
New- Street-Square. 



(/ 



COMPARATIVE VIEW 



OF 



THE SOCIAL LIFE 



OF 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 

ii(o\i nil. IBRDRATION 01 CHARLES mi ISCOND, 

id mi. i Hi.sc 11 ki.wh.i riON. 

BY thk BDITOI «>i 

MADAME Dl 1)1.11 AND'8 LETTER 



'• Ml, all but truth, dro|>$ still-born from the Prc«8." 

tmWft I i 'ist U !■> tibutltnot. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR 

LONGMAN, REEn OKME, BROWN, AND GREEN, 
PATERNOSTER-ROW. 

1828. 



-DA no 

IS U 






Library of Congress 

By transfer from 

State Department 



•* v » ** 



PREFACE 



While the great moral principles upon which 
all social order in an advanced state of civilisa- 
tion is necessarily formed, remain at all times 
nearly the same, the modifications imposed by 
law, or induced by custom, in different eras of 
society — the duties exacted by the one, and the 
licence often obtained by the other — produce 
occasional, accidental ebbs and flows in the 
morals as well as in the manners of private life. 
These form an interesting and not unuseful 
subject of contemplation to such minds as, in 
society, by an intimate acquaintance with their 
contemporaries, have been enlightened, not con- 
tracted; who have learnt, in and from the world, 
indulgence to its follies without participation in 
its thoughtlessness, and a severe adherence to 
general principles, with great lenity to individual 
deviations from them. It is of such characters 
that La Bruyere says, " lis peuvent hair les 
" hommes en general ou il y a si peu de vertu, 



VI 

" mais ils excusent les particuliers ; ils les aiment 
" meme par des motifs plus releves, et ils s'etu- 
" dient a meriter le moins qu'ils peuvent une 
" pareille indulgence." (1) 

Some considerations are here ottered on the 
changes which have taken place, and the fluc- 
tuations observable in the two countries which, 
for above a century, may be said to have divided 
between them the social world of Europe. The 
period chosen is one from authentic sources, 
still within our observation. Details of more 
distant times, from the great scarcity of mate- 
rials, would be rather addressed to the curiosity 
of the antiquary, than to the feelings and reflec- 
tion of the general observer of human nature. 
Individual characters are sometimes brought 
forward, as the best authority for the senti- 
ments and conduct of the period to which they 
belong ; and sketches sometimes given of the 
biography of such as have been distinguished in 
social life, although little noticed in history. 



(1) Caracteres de la Bruy^re, torn. ii. p. 8' 



vu 



In the instance of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, their 
political importance and superiority was too 
closely interwoven with the whole tissue of their 
lives, to be separated from them ; but in the 
following pages their characters are touched on, 
not as the leaders of political parties, but, as to 
the effect which those characters produced on 
their associates, and on the times in which they 
lived. 

The Author has endeavoured to avoid all 
recapitulations of well-known circumstances, 
anecdotes, and characters belonging to a period 
so familiar to the reading world, or at least to 
that part of it here addressed. 

All great political speculations, all military 
and financial details, are left to more impor- 
tant and more voluminous works. Nothing 
is here attempted but a review of social life and 
manners, from materials open to every one as 
well as to the Author, and therefore supposed 
to be possessed by them. To this are added 
some observations suggested by a long inter- 
course with society in both countries. 

A First Volume is now offered to the public : 



vin 



should it amuse the leisure of those whose more 
enlarged and more profound knowledge of the 
times recorded gives them an interest in their 
social details ; should it assist in suggesting those 
associations of ideas always an agreeable exercise 
to the human mind, the aim of the Author is 
fulfilled. A Second Volume, attempting to re- 
cord the changes produced, and the altered 
spirit prevailing in both countries subsequent 
to the French Revolution, might perhaps prove 
more interesting, from approaching nearer to our 
contemporaries. But if only a series of insig- 
nificant circumstances are found to be here 
related, all previously familiar to the reader; 
if these circumstances are found unaccompanied 
by any comment which may lead to greater and 
more general views of human life and character ; 
and if they produce no speculations beyond the 
mere matter of fact recorded ; if such is the 
unerring decision of that portion of the public 
into whose hands the following pages may fall, 
then the future amusement of the Author will 
not be further intruded on the public. 

April, 1828. 



/ 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction .... Page I 



CHAPTER I. 

Conduct of the Royal Family at the Restoration. — Duke 
of Buckingham. — Inferiority of the Taste, Manners, 
Literature, and social Habits of England, to those of 
France at this Period. — Reasons for it. — Effects of 
the bad Taste of the Times on Morals and on Society. 

— Lord Rochester Excessive Drinking. — King's bad 

Example Memoires de Grammont, Atalantis, Duchess 

of Cleveland - - - - -53 



CHAPTER II. 

Effects of the Restoration on Female Manners and so- 
cial Existence. — Marriages of the young Nobility. — 
The Talents of Women entirely neglected in their Edu- 
cation. — Lady Falkland. — Duchess of Newcastle. — 
Infrequency and Dulness of Private Letters. — Diary of 
the first Lady Burlington. — Letters of Lady Russell and 
Lady Sunderland. — Cards and Play confined to the 
Court. — False Idea of the Manners of England given by 
the Writers of the Day - - - - 98 

a 



CHAPTER III. 

French Memoirs and Private Correspondence, their Advan- 
tages over our early Chronicles. — State of Society in 
France during the Regency of Anne of Austria. — Cha- 
racter of her Court. — Madame de Chevrcuse. — Made- 
moiselle de Hautefort. — Mademoiselle de la Fayette. — 
Cardinal Mazarin. — Contrast between the Motives and 
Conduct of the contemporary Civil Wars of France and 
England. — The Fronde, and its Effects on the Social Life 
and Manners of France. — The Duchesse de Longue- 
ville ..... Page 125 

CHAPTER IV. 

Much Purity of Conduct and Excellence of Female Cha- 
racter contemporary with the Heroines of the Fronde. — 
Madame de Sevigne. — Mademoiselle de Vigean. — The 
Duchesse de Navailles. — The Amusements of Society 

in England and in France. — The Theatre Comparison 

of that of France with that of England - - 162 

CHAPTER V. 

Influence of the first Years of the Majority of Louis the 
Fourteenth on the Society and social Habits of France. 

— St. Evremond. — Duchesse de Mazarin. — Ninon de 
l'Enclos. — Hotel de Rambouillet. — Fetes at Versailles. 

— Change which took Place during the Reign of Louis 
the Fourteenth. — State of Society at the Time of his 
Death --._.. 206 

CHAPTER VL 

The Change of Manners which took Place in England 
after the Revolution of 1688. — King William. — Queen 
Mary. — The Amusements and Habits of social Lite 
during the Reigns of King William and of Queen Anne. 



XI 



— Duchess of Norfolk's Divorce. — Duchess of Marl- 
borough. — Lady Masham. — Queen Anne. — Lady Betty 
Germaine. — Duchess of Queensbury. — Lady M. W. 
Montague. — Bolingbroke. — Pope. — Swift. — Steele. 

— Gay. — Prior. — Congreve. — Degraded State of the 
Fine Arts - - Page 259 

CHAPTER VII. 

Ignorance of the Government of Louis the Fourteenth. — 
Theological Disputes. — Suspicions of Poison. — Madame 
de Brinvilliers. — Jesuits and Jansenists. — Voltaire. — 
Regent's Government hurried on the Revolution Con- 
duct of the French Nobility and of the Popular Party at 
the Beginning'of the Revolution.— State of the public Mind 
in Europe. — Rousseau, Effects produced by his Writings 
in France. — Absence of all Regard to Moral Truth. — 
Madame du Chatelet. — St. Lambert. — Madame de 
Grafigny. — Madame d'Epinay, her Society, Rousseau's 
Conduct in it. — Madame d'Houdetot - - 330 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Tribunals of France, their disgraceful Conduct. — The 

Pretensions of the Parliaments Political Discussion 

becomes general in Society. — Effects produced by the 
Genius and Writings of Voltaire on the Character of his 
Country. — State of Society at Paris immediately pre- 
ceding the Revolution. — The Influence of Women on 
the Opinions and Circumstances of the Times. — Remark- 
able Difference in the Conduct of England and France 
under Circumstances of popular Excitation. — Execution 
of Foulon. — Mixture of Atrocity and Folly in the suc- 
cessive Demagogues of French Liberty. — Chaumette. — 
Trial of the Queen. — Hebert. — Couthon. — St. Just. 

— Collot D'Herbois Strange Insensibility to Death. 

— Frivolous Discussions of the Convention - -381 



Xll 

CHAPTER IX. 

State of England from the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to 
the Beginning of the French Revolution. — Accession of 
George the Third. — His early Character and Conduct. 
— Prosperous State of the Country. — American War, 
its Effects. — Mr. Pitt. — His Conduct respecting the 
French Revolution. — Its Social and Political Effects on 
England. — Mr. Fox. - - - Page 434 



INTRODUCTION. 



In considering and comparing the manners and 
habits, the opinions and prejudices, of England 
and France, it is remarkable that two nations 
so contiguous, so long and so intimately con- 
nected, and having always, either as friends or as 
enemies, seen so much of each other, should 
still continue so essentially dissimilar. 

Like country neighbours, of uncongenial cha- 
racters, we have never, during our hereditary 
and necessary intercourse with each other, con- 
tinued long upon good terms, and have gene- 
rally fallen out when any attempts have been 
made to increase our intimacy or unite us more 
closely. 

Even when upon the most friendly footing, 
we have neither of us disliked hearing our 
neighbours abused, their peculiarities laughed 
at, and their weaknesses exaggerated, and have 



B H" 



2 



seldom been disposed to do them justice, except 
when we conceived that we had humbled and 
worsted them. 

The two nations may be considered as having 
been in a state of the most entire alienation from 
each other at the period of the restoration of 
Charles the Second. A space of twenty years, 
joined to bur insular situation, would be more 
than enough, at any time, to wear out almost 
every vestige of foreign fashions or manners ; 
but these intervening years had, besides, been 
marked by political struggles, which, in calling 
forth our national peculiarities, exhibited them 
in the greatest possible contrast to the French 
character of that period, not only as to religion 
and politics, but as to every public and private 
sentiment, both national and individual. 

The intermediate events which took place in 
both countries, mutually fortified and increased 
all these distinctive differences. The great and 
decisive stand made by the English nation, first 
in the senate, and then in the field, against the 
arbitrary plans of the misguided Charles, plans, 
which, whether of resistance or accommodation, 
were always (and too truly) connected in public 
opinion with foreign counsels and foreign aid. 
The temporary settlement which took place 
under Cromwell ; the abortive and ill-concerted 



attempts subsequently made for the establish- 
ment of a republic, — all these national exer- 
tions were equally grounded upon a determined 
resistance to foreign interposition, and to any 
change in the laws and customs considered as 
peculiarly English. Indeed it is a circumstance 
which must strike all those who have looked 
much into our earliest annals, not in compiled 
histories, but in contemporary writers, and in 
the still subsisting records of the time, that the 
English seem always to have been a chosen 
people, for the deposit of political truth and 
civil liberty ; not of romantic visions, impos- 
sible from the nature of man to be realised, 
but of plain practical doctrines, long acted 
upon, often opposed, sometimes reversed, al- 
ways ultimately triumphant. No regularly con- 
structed constitution of government subsisted 
in the times here referred to ; but the common 
law of England, the unwritten record of time 
immemorial, proves that this principle of civil 
liberty, of individual independence, of resist- 
ance to all oppression at home, and all inter- 
vention from abroad, existed long before ; and 
what is more remarkable, during, and in de- 
fiance ofi the alternate rule of the Yorks and 
the Lancasters, the succession of Tudors and 

b 2 



4 

of Stuarts. (1) It was, in fact, kept alive, by 
their successive efforts to subdue it ; was en- 
lightened, strengthened, and systematised, by 
the effects of the civil war, and by all the 
energy of mind, and excellence of understand- 
ing, which those times called forth, and was 
permanently established at the Revolution, which 
secured the throne to the house of Brunswick. 

The aversion the people of England ever 
evinced to foreign connections was by no 
means shared by their princes, especially those 
of the race of Stuart. 

The short-sighted policy, and puerile eager- 
ness with which James the First sought the al- 
liance, first of Austria, and then of France, by 
the marriage of his son, seems rather to have 
been the effect of early prejudice, imbibed in 



(1) This is sufficiently proved by many of the public 
papers in the curious selection made by the late Mr. Lysons, 
while keeper of the records in the Tower, where we find 
(among many other similar facts) Henry the Fifth, during 
his victorious campaign in France, receiving and answering 
petitions from the meanest of his subjects, complaining of 
encroachments on their property or rights. His letter 
missive to his chancellor is there preserved, desiring him 
to see immediate justice done to a miller, who had com- 
plained to the king of a neighbouring convent of monks 
having obstructed his mill-stream, and otherwise oppressed 
and injured him. 



Scotland, which taught him always to look to a 
powerful connection on the Continent for sup- 
port, than to any decided project for introducing 
the Roman Catholic religion, which in those 
days formed too much an Imperiam in Imperio, 
to have been relished by his weak, self-sufficient, 
and despotic mind. 

Even the letter of his son Charles to Pope 
Gregory the Fifteenth, which has been so fre- 
quently cited against its writer, appears rather a 
measure of formal civility in those punctilious 
times, than an intimation of that early bias, in 
favour of the religion of the pontiff he addresses, 
which was afterwards supposed to be detected 
in it. 

In the early part of his subsequent reign there 
are many particulars recorded in the memoirs 
of the times, which exhibit the incongruity of 
the habits and feelings of the two nations, even 
while immediately connected by the marriage of 
Charles to Henrietta Maria. (1) 

A year had not elapsed after this marriage, 
when the whole train of French attendants, who 
had accompanied the Queen from Paris, were 
suddenly dismissed from her service ; a large 

(1) She was married by proxy at Notre Dame, at Paris, 
on the 31st of May, 1626. 

B 3 



sum of money and magnificent presents (1) were 
distributed among them, but their immediate 
departure insisted on and enforced. 

The letter or declaration of Charles to his 
brother-in-law, Louis the Thirteenth, justifies, in 
a very spirited and sensible manner, the conduct 
he had been obliged to adopt, both towards his 
queen and her attendants. (2) Their imper- 
tinence and arrogance, the meddling insolence of 
their priests, and the pretensions and complaints 
which they all combined in suggesting to their 
mistress, had become intolerable, not only to the 
English court, but to the King himself; to that 
king, the subsequent strength and unshaken con- 
stancy of whose attachment to his wife forms so 
conspicuous a part of his disastrous history, and 
an interesting excuse for some of his mis- 
conduct. (3) 



(1) They received above 11,000/. in money, and 20,000/. 
worth of jewels. 

(2) A copy of this declaration was first published with 
the letters found in the king's cabinet, taken at the battle 
of Nasby. Whether this paper was really among them may 
admit of a doubt; but the parliament having it, by whatever 
means, in their possession, no doubt can exist of their rea- 
sons for publishing what coincided so entirely with all the 
popular prejudices against the queen. 

(3) " The king's affection to the queen was of a verv 
" extraordinary alloy, a composition of conscience and lo\o. 



The Marechal de Bassompierre, it is known, 
came as ambassador extraordinary to England, 
to settle these differences, or rather to insist on 
the re-establishment of the Queen's French 
household and priests. Lord Carleton, who had 
carried to France the letter from Charles, 
announcing their dismissal, was very ill received 
by Louis ; and Montagu, who was sent soon 
after with a compliment on the marriage of 
Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the King's brother, 
was ordered to leave Paris immediately, without 
being even admitted to an audience. 

The detailed account which Bassompierre 



" and generosity and gratitude, and all those noble affec- 
" tions which raise the passion to the greatest height ; in- 
" somuch as he saw with her eyes, and determined by her 
"judgment; and did not only pay her this adoration, but 
" desired that all men should know that he was swayed by 
" her, which was not good for either of them. The queen 
" was a lady of great beauty, excellent wit and humour, 
" and made him a just return of noblest affections, so that 
" they were the true idea of conjugal affection in the age 
" in which they lived. When she was admitted to the 
" knowledge and participation of the most secret affairs 
11 (from which she had been carefully restrained by the 
" Duke of Buckingham whilst he lived), she took delight in 
" the examining and discussing them, and from thence in 
a making judgment of them, in which her passions were 
" always strong." — Continuation of the Life of Clarendon, 
vol. i. p. 155. 

B 4 



8 

gives in his memoirs of his first interview with 
Charles, shows how much the King was irritated 
at the conduct of the court of France on this 
occasion, and how determined he was to main- 
tain his own dignity, and resist any foreign in- 
tervention in his affairs. 

He had insisted on Bassompierre's not enter- 
ing on the subject of his mission at his first 
public audience at Hampton Court, where the 
Queen was at his side, and, as the ambassador 
tells us, " la compagnie etoit superbe et Pordre 
" exquis," but admitted him to a private inter- 
view of two hours, within three days afterwards, 
at the same place ; " en laquelle," Bassom- 
pierre reports to Louis the Thirteenth, "j'ai 
" trouve tant de rudesses, et si peu de desir de 
" contenter votre majeste, que je ne m'en S9aurois 
" assez estonner, car apres m'avoir longuement 
" escoute, il me dit que je n'accomplisois pas la 
" charge que Pon lui avoit mande, que j'avois 
" de lui declarer la guerre de votre part. Je 
" luy dit que je n'avois pas Poffice de herault, 
" pour luy aim oncer la guerre, mais bien celuy 
" de Marechal de France, pour Pexecuter quand 
c< votre majeste Pauroit resolue, et que jusques a 
" present, vous fustes avec lui com me avec un 
" frere. II me dit, que si cela etoit, votre majeste 
" devoit le laisser en repos et en liberte en sa 



♦maison, en laquelle, ni vous, ni personne, n'avez 
1 qu'a voir que la religion de votre sceur, etoit 
« assuree, que directement ni indirectement il 
' ne tacheroit de luy faire changer, et qu'au 
1 reste, il ne vouloit pas que la reyne sa femme at- 
( tendist protection d'aucun autre que de luy ; 
' qu'il avoit este force de chasser ses officiers 
1 Francois, pour leur mauvais deportement, et 
' les brigues et monopoles qu'ils faisoient en 
« l'etat, qu'ils luy divertissoient le cceur et 
' 1'affection de la reyne sa femme, laquelle ils 
1 obsedoient pour l'empecher de faire cas des 

* Anglois et Angloises, la destournant d'ap- 

* prendre la langue, et faisant qu'elle ne se 
6 portoit envers luy comme elle devoit, dont il 
1 avoit auparavant fait donner avis a votre 
' majeste et a la reyne mere. Que maintenant, 
' etdepuis qu'il les a esloignes,la reyne sa femme, 

* vit mieux avec lui, et qu'il a l'esperance 
1 qu'a l'avenir, elle luy donnera toute sorte de 
' contentement. Qu'il n'est pas resolu de 

* rentrer en la meme peine ou il a ete pour le 
6 passe, et dont il est sorty, et que si votre 
' majeste aime son repos comme son beau 
' frere qu'elle ne le doit point presser a cela, 
' et qu'il ne le fera point. Qu'il a donne 
e a la reyne votre sceur un train digne de sa 
6 qualite, ou il y a quelques catholics, qu'il la 

* traitera en reyne, mais qu'il veut qu'elle se 



10 

" comporte avec lui comme elle doit, et qu'elle 
" luy defere et obeisse comme sa femme." 

In addition to this account given directly to 
Louis the Thirteenth, a part of Bassompierre's 
Memoirs contains a journal of his iife day by 
day, which embraces the whole period of his 
embassy to England, from the 2d of October 
to the 18th of December, 1626. 

In this we find a remarkable instance of the 
familiar footing, which the Duke of Bucking- 
ham maintained with the king, and of a lesson 
of etiquette given to the Duke by the ambas- 
sador, of which he seems to have been too little 
aware to have much profited. 

Bassompierre, describing this his first interview 
with Charles in a gallery at Hampton Court, 
says, " Je vis la line grande hardiesse, pour ne 
" pas dire efFronterie, du Due de Boukingham, 
" qui fut, que lorsqu'il nous vit les plus echauffes, 
" il partit de la main, et se vint mettre en 
" tiers avec le roy et moy, disant je viens faire le 
" holaentrevousdeux. Lors, j'ostaymonchapeau, 
" et tant qu'il fust avec nous, je ne le voulus re- 
" mettre quelqu'instances que le roy et luy m'en 
" fissent. Puis, quand il fust retire, je le remis 
" sans que le roy me le dit. Quand j'eus acheve, 
" et que le due put parler a moy, il me dit, 
" pourquoi je ne m'etois pas voulu couvrir luy 
" y-etant, et que luy n'y-etant pas, je m'etois si 



11 

" franchement couvert? Je luy repondis que je 
" l'avois fait pour luy faire honneur, et par ce 
" qu'il ne le fust pas couvert, et que je Feusse 
" ete, dont il me S9Ut bon gre, et le dit depuis 
" plusieurs fois, en me louant. Mais j'avois encore 
n une autre raison pour le faire, qui etoit, que ce 
" n'etoit plus audience, mais conversation par- 
" ticuliere, puis ce qu'il l'avoit interrompue se 
" mettant en tiers." Buckingham, however, it 
seems was the mediator in this whole business. 
He professed to Bassompierre an aversion to all 
the severities of the Puritans against the Catholics, 
and the greatest desire to satisfy the Queen by 
the recall of her French household, although he 
had hitherto been on no very friendly terms with 
her, and she was supposed to dread his influence 
with the King. He now, however, (as Madame 
de Motteville tells us,) seconded an imprudent 
scheme, which the Queen's ill humour at the dis- 
missal of her French servants had suggested, of 
making a visit to her mother, accompanied by 
Buckingham. To this, however, neither Mary of 
Medicis nor Louis the Thirteenth would consent. 
Buckingham was now in the height of his ro- 
mantic passion for Anne of Austria, and was 
equally averse to war between the two countries, 
or, to their settling their differences without his 
immediate interference ; he therefore announced 
himself to Bassompierre as the person intended 



12 

to be sent ambassador from Charles to Paris, and 
in his quality of lord high admiral to settle the 
maritime disputes between the two countries. 
Bassompierre was obliged to deter him by every 
means in his power from seeking the appointment 
of ambassador on this occasion ; having received 
positive instructions from Louis the Thirteenth 
to prevent his coming, and even to tell him he 
would not be received, till every point, both with 
respect to the Queen's household, and to the 
maritime disputes, was settled. Louis, in his 
letter to his ambassador on the subject, says, 
" Je remets a votre prudence et adresse, de luy 
" escrire sur ce sujet, en telle sorte qu'il ne 
" puisse pas dire, comme il a fait en Hollande, 
" que je luy ai fait defendre de venir en France, 
" et en tout cas, s'il arrivoit que par ces cooside- 
" rations le dit Due de Buckingham ne fut arret£ 
" de faire le dit voyage, j'entens que vous luy 
" faisiez scavoir par homme expres et de creance, 
" que vous envoyerez vers luy, qu'il reculera les 
« affaires de son maitre, plutot que de les avancer 
" en cette sorte, et que je n'aurois point agre- 
*' able de le voir que toutes choses ne soient 
" entitlement accommodees entre nous."(l) It 
was pique at this aversion of the court of France 
to receiving him, which made Buckingham in- 

(1) Mt'moires de Bassompierre. 



13 

sist on the command of the unfortunate expedi- 
tion to La Rochelle, where he had flattered him- 
self, he was first to have humbled the arms of 
France, and then, as a conqueror, to be sent to 
Paris to negotiate a necessary peace. 

Happy had it been for Henrietta Maria and 
her family, if, along with her French attendants, 
she could have dismissed the mistaken ideas 
she had received from her French education ; 
or that the misfortunes and disgrace of the 
latter part of her mother's life(l) had taught 

(1) Mary of Medicis, the widow of Henry the Fourth, 
died in exile and neglect at Blois, after having long main- 
tained against the Cardinal de Richelieu an unequal combat 
for that power, which they were both equally disposed to 
abuse. She had been three years in England on a visit to 
her daughter, from the year 1638 till 1641. Her arrival 
and her departure is thus mentioned by a contemporary 
writer : — 

" In anno 1638, the queen-mother of France and mother 
" unto the English queen, widow of Henry the Fourth, King 
" of France, landed in England, and came unto London the 
" 31st of October. She was very meanly accompanied, 
" and had few persons of quality attending her. The King 
" most humanely and generously receives and entertains 
" her, though all men were extremely against it ; for it was 
" observed, that wherever or unto whatever country this 
" miserable old queen came, there followed immediately 
" after her either the plague, war, famine, or one misfortune 
" or other. ***** 

" In the same month of August, 1641, I beheld the 
" old queen-mother of France departing from London, in 



14 



her the dangers of political intrigue and political 
power, even in France, already long accustomed 
to the influence of women in the most serious 
affairs. (1) From the time of the dismissal of her 
French attendants, we find her living in perfect 
harmony with Charles, and from the death of 
the Duke of Buckingham two years afterwards, 
in 1628, exercising such unbounded influence 
over him, that his subsequent fortunes must 



" company of Thomas, Earl of Arundel ; a sad spectacle 
" of mortality it was, and produced tears from mine eyes 
" and many other beholders, to see an aged, lean, de- 
" crepit, poor queen, ready for her grave, necessitated 
" to depart hence, having no place of residence in this 
" world left her, but where the curtesy of her hard fortune 
" assigned it. She had been the only stately and mag- 
" nificent woman of Europe, wife to the greatest king 
" that ever lived in France, mother unto one king and unto 
" two queens." — Several Observations on the Life and 
Death of King Charles the First, by William Lilly, first 
published, July, 1651. 

(1) Sir Edward Stafford ambassador at Paris in 15S8, 
gives a curious account to Queen Elizabeth of the ladies 
who had the most political influence in the court of Henry 
the Fourth, in the following words : — " For Your Majesty 
" may assure yourself that there are four women in the 
" court, Mesdames de Villeroy, Retz, Princesses of Condi 
lt and Nevers, that have all the news and most secretest 
" devices of the court ; for there is not one of these, or at 
" least among these four, that hath not either a lover, an 
" honourer, or a private friend of the secretest council of 
" the court, that will almost hide nothing from them." 



15 

necessarily have much depended on her charac- 
ter. Unfortunately for them both, her ideas 
of government and religion, of the rights of 
princes, and of the means to be employed to 
maintain or retrieve them, were no less contrary 
to our laws, than foreign to our habits, and 
obnoxious to our dispositions. 

This was so well understood by the nation, 
that Clarendon tells us from the first public 
demonstrations of discontent, the universal pre- 
judice was against the queen (1); and as early 
as the year 1641 in the memorable petition and 
remonstrance which was presented to the King 
at Hampton Court, immediately after his return 
from Scotland, he is requested to let such per- 
sons only near him, in places of trust, as his 
parliament may confide in, and that in his 
princely goodness to his people, he will " reject 
" and refuse all mediation and solicitation to the 
" contrary, how powerful and near so ever." 



(1) Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 109. 

She was so aware of this herself, that in a letter to the 
King, of March 29. 1644-, she says, " If you make a peace 
" and disband your army before there is an end to this 
" perpetual parliament, I am resolved to go to France, not 
" being willing to fall again into the hands of those people, 
" being well assured, that if the power remain with them, 
" that it will not be well for me in England." — Kings 
Cabinet opened, p. 28. 



16 

These early expressed suspicions, her sub- 
sequent conduct was too well calculated to con- 
firm and increase. Her ill-timed visit to France, 
in the year 1642, her binding her husband by a 
solemn promise to make no peace, nor any com- 
promise with his discontented subjects during 
her absence (1 J, and the difficulties which it is 
known she afterwards threw in the way of any 
attempts at accommodation, were the acts of a 
mind as incapable of rising above the prejudices 
of her own country, as of estimating the force 
and effect of those of the country she wished to 
govern. It is recorded that when she returned 
after the Restoration to take possession of So- 
merset House, her former residence, she ex- 
claimed, that if she had known the temper of 
the people of England some years past, as well 
as she did then, she had never been obliged to 
leave that house. (2) During the first fifteen 
peaceable years of Charles's reign, we must 
suppose that her influence was not entirely con- 
fined to her husband. Beautiful in her person, 
lively in her manners and conversation, brought 
up in a court around which the popular character 
of her father Henry the Fourth had thrown a 



(1) Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 156. 

(2) Well wood's Memoir, p. 134. 



17 

fresh lustre, and belonging to a nation not back- 
ward in appreciating its own advantages, her 
example and the frequent intercourse with 
France which her establishment here must have 
occasioned, probably contributed to introduce 
many French fashions and customs into her 
court (1) ; but the influence of that court hardly 
extended beyond the precincts of Whitehall. 
The character and situation of the gentry of 
England in those days were too respectable and 
too independent to be easily influenced by 
power, or altered by caprice. 

The wise provisions of Elizabeth had enabled 
our foreign commerce materially to assist the 
agriculture and the manufactures of the country; 
these, a long and uninterrupted peace of above 



(1) Among others, that of suppers in society, which, 
Clarendon says, became universal with the court-party 
during the troubles. If we may believe Bassompierre, 
however, this court, at the beginning of the reign of 
Charles the First, was rather magnificent than gay. He 
says, in a letter to the Marechal de Schomberg, from 
London, in October, 1626," Je verray ce qu'en reussira, dans 
" peu de jours que je passeray comme les precedens, avec 
" grande melancholie dans ce pays. Un homme bien recu 
" s'y pourroit ennuyer, a plus forte raison moy a qui la 
" commission, et les autres precedentes actions de Carleton, 
" et de Montaigu, rendent de tres-mauvais offices. Nean- 
" moins je trouve force courtoisie avec les seigneurs." — 
Mem. de Bassompierre, vol. ii. p. 148. 

C 



18 

forty years (however ignobly maintained by 
James the First) fostered and increased. 

Perhaps during the period of which we are 
now speaking, in spite of some habits of homely 
economy in the highest ranks, which would 
shock the wasteful refinement and splendid 
poverty (1) of the present day, a general ease 
in circumstances, and a plentiful enjoyment of 
the comforts of life, were more universal, and 
pinching want and sordid poverty less fre- 
quent, than in any former or any subsequent 
period of our history. (2) When the King was 



(1) It may be objected to this, that the comfortable 

luxuries of life are more generally diffused now than at 

any former period, and that the term splendid poverty is 

ill applied to any order of persons in the present day. I 

allow that all those in the possession of property of any 

sort spend more of it in procuring for themselves what 

must be called the luxuries of life than they ever did 

before ; but does not the general prosperity of the state, 

and its power of making great pecuniary exertions, bear so 

hard (in proportion) on all orders of people, that if those 

only can be called opulent who have the absolute command 

of more than their ordinary habits of life require, much 

splendid poverty will, I think, be found among those, whose 

forefathers would start at the wasteful refinement of one 

month's expence in the mansions, both in town and country. 

which their descendants (with a few overgrown exceptions) 

find it sometimes inconvenient to maintain ? 

(2) The author is proud to find this opinion confirmed in 
the Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 540., where 



19 

at Nottingham with his troops, in the first of his 
ill-judged campaigns, he applied for money (as 
Clarendon tells us), to two rich misers in the 
country, who each, separately, denounced his 
neighbour, the one as having twenty thou- 
sand pounds always by him, and the other, a 
trunk full of coin, which both advised the King 
to take, although they would give nothing of 
their own. A hundred pounds was with dif- 
ficulty obtained from another gentleman of that 
county, from whom the Parliament, soon after, 
took five thousand, which he always kept in his 
bedchamber. 

It was this ease, and its concomitant leisure, 
which allowed the thinking part of the nation 
to observe and to oppose the steps they saw 
taking to deprive them of advantages which 
they valued so highly, and privileges to which 
they were so justly attached. The terrors of the 
Star Chamber, of the High Commission Court, 
and of the Court of Wards and Liveries, with all 
their long train of abuses, could have fallen but 
on few, comparatively with the great bulk of 
the people, who, procul d Jove, procid a Julmine, 



the idea is enlarged on, and the causes of this prosperity- 
specified, with all the accustomed acuteness of the author. 

C 2 



20 

prosecuted their labours, and enjoyed the fruits 
of them in peace. 

The acute and accurate author of the Con- 
stitutional History of England says, on occasion 
of the trial of the five knights, for refusing to 
contribute to the forced loan in 1626, " No 
" year, indeed, within the memory of any one 
" living, had witnessed such violation of public 
"liberty as 16%7." But still these violations 
fell chiefly on the upper orders of society, and 
were so modified, before they touched the people 
at large, and the working classes, and were at 
the same time so consonant with the antecedent 
habits of the country, that they could scarcely 
have been felt. 

There is an account of the house and way 
of living of Mr. Hastings, of Woodlands, in 
Hampshire, the second son of an Earl of Hun- 
tingdon, said to have been drawn up by the first 
Earl of Shaftesbury, and published many years 
ago in a periodical paper. (1) It gives the 
following curious picture of the sporting life 
and rude habits of an English country gentleman, 
of a date somewhat antecedent to that of which 
we are speaking : — " In the year 1658 lived 



(1) The Connoisseur, vol. iii. No.81. 



21 

" Mr. Hastings, by his quality son, brother, and 
" uncle to the Earls of Huntingdon. He was, 
" peradventure, an original in our age, or rather 
" the copy of our ancient nobility, in hunting, 
u not in warlike times. 

"He was low, very strong and very active ; 
" of a reddish flaxen hair. His cloaths always 
" green cloth, and never all worth (when new) 
" five pounds. 

" His house was perfectly of the old fashion, 
" in the midst of a large park, well stocked with 
" deer ; and near the house rabbits to serve his 
" kitchen ; many fish ponds, great store of wood 
" and timber, a bowling green in it, long but 
" narrow, full of high ridges, it being never 
" levelled since it was ploughed. They used 
" round sand bowls, and it had a banquetting 
" house like a stand, built in a tree. 

" He kept all manner of sport hounds, that 
" ran buck, fox, hair, otter, and badger ; and 
" hawks, long and short winged. He had all 
" sorts of nets for fish. He had a walk in the 
" New Forest, and the manor of Christ Church. 
" This last supplied him with red deer, sea 
" and river fish. And indeed all his neighbours 
11 grounds and royalties were free to him, who 
" bestowed all his time on these sports, but 
" what he borrowed to caress his neighbours 

c 3 



22 

" wives and daughters; there being not a woman 
" in all his walks, of the degree of a yeoman's 
" wife or under, and under the age of forty, 
" but it was extremely her fault if he was not 
" intimately acquainted with her. This made 
" him very popular, always speaking kindly to 
" the husband, brother, or father ; who was, to 
" boot, very welcome to his house whenever he 
" came. There he found beef, pudding, and 
" small beer in great plenty ; a house not so 
" neatly kept as to shame him, or his dirty shoes ; 
" the great hall strow'd with marrow bones, 
" full of hawks perches, hounds, spaniels, and 
" terriers ; the upper side of the hall hung with 
" fox-skins of this and the last year's killing; 
" here and there a pole-cat intermixt ; game- 
" keepers and hunters poles in great abundance. 
" The parlour was a large room, as properly 
" furnished. On a great hearth paved with 
" brick lay some terriers, and the choicest 
" hounds and spaniels. Seldom but two of the 
" great chairs had litters of young cats in them, 
" which were not to be disturbed, he having 
" always three or four attending him at dinner ; 
"and a little white round stick of fourteen 
" inches lying by his trencher, that he might 
" defend such meat as he had no mind to part 
" with to them. The windows (which were 



23 

" very large) served for places to lay his arrows, 
" cross-bows, stone-bows, and other such like 
" accoutrements. The corners of the room full 
" of the best chose hunting and hawking poles. 
" An oyster table at the lower end, which was 
" of constant use twice a day all the year round. 
" For he never fail'd to eat oysters before 
" dinner and supper through all seasons : the 
" neighbouring town of Pool supplied him 
" with them. 

" The upper part of the room had two small 
" tables and a desk, on the one side of which 
" was a church Bible, and on the other the 
" Book of Martyrs. On the tables were hawks, 
" hoods, bells, and such like ; two or three old 
" green hats, with their crowns thrust in, so as 
" to hold ten or a dozen eggs, which were of a 
" pheasant kind of poultry he took much care 
" of, and fed himself. Tables, dice, cards, and 
" boles were not wanting. In the hole of the 
" desk were store of tobacco-pipes that had 
" been used. 

" On one side of this end of the room was 
" the door of a closet, wherein stood the strong 
" beer and the wine, which never came thence 
" but in single glasses ; that being the rule of the 
" house exactly observed : for he never exceeded 
" in drink, or permitted it. 

c 4 



24 

" On the other side was the door into an old 
11 chapel, not used for devotion ; the pulpit, as 
" the safest place, was never wanting of a cold 
" chine of beefi venison, pasty, gammon of 
" bacon, or great apple-pie with thick crust, 
" extremely baked. 

" His table cost him not much, though it was 
" good to eat at ; his sports supplied all but 
" beef and mutton, except Fridays, when he had 
" the best salt fish (as well as other fish) he 
" could get, and was the day his neighbours of 
" best quality most visited him. He never 
" wanted a London pudding, and always sung it 
" in with, My part lies therein-a. He drank a 
" glass or two of wine at meals ; very often 
" syrup of giliflower in his sack, and had always 
" a tun-glass without feet stood by him, holding 
" a pint of small beer, which he often stirred 
" with rosemary. 

" He was well natured but soon angry, calling 
" his servants bastards, and cuckoldy knaves, in 
" one of which he often spoke truth to his own 
" knowledge, and sometimes in both, though of 
" the same man. He lived to be an hundred ; 
" never lost his eye-sight, but always wrote and 
" read without spectacles, and got on horseback 
" without help. Until past fourscore he rode to 
" the death of a stag as well as any." 



25 

Of the situation, manners, and habits of the 
gentry of England, of what on the continent of 
Europe would obtain the name of untitled 
nobility, immediately before and during the 
civil wars, the admirable biographical works of 
Lord Clarendon, of Mrs. Hutchinson, the Diary 
of Mr. Evelyn, and several other contemporary 
writers of less celebrity, give us many details; and 
certainly none of the refinements of later days 
can prevent our looking back with pride, if not 
with envy, to their acquirements, to their senti- 
ments, and to their conduct. The interesting 
relation given by Clarendon of his own early 
life, and that of his friends, of their studies, their 
pursuits, and their pleasures ; the particulars we 
receive from Mrs. Hutchinson, of her education, 
the number of her masters, the attention paid 
to her accomplishments, and the share she was 
allowed to have in the instructions given to her 
brothers, can hardly be exceeded even in this 
educating age, when every thing that can be 
learned is supposed to be easily obtained by any 
body able to pay for the most popular instructor. 
On one subject only, that of religious opinions, 
the daily increasing prejudices of the age were 
essentially inimical to the enlargement of the 
human mind, and to the formation of characters 
capable of rising superior to those prejudices. 



26 

Foreign travel, which had been very general 
among the nobility, and the upper order of 
the gentry in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, 
was now, from an increased dread of the Roman 
Catholic religion, little resorted to. 

The inevitable effects of this great omission, 
combined with our insular situation, became 
immediately observable in all the most distin- 
guished characters, for sense and abilities, that 
arose during the ensuing struggle. Lord Cla- 
rendon himself spoke no French, nor any other 
modern language. (1) It is easy to suppose the 
disadvantages to which such a deficiency must 
often have subjected him, during the long course 
of his public services, both before and after the 
Restoration. 

This entirely home education, this confine- 
ment to one spot, then little visited by strangers, 



(1) " It was on account of his unskilfulness in languages, 
" and his not understanding foreign affairs," that he refused 
being secretary of state at Oxford, in the year 1643. (See 
Life of Clarendon, vol. i. p. 141.) Later in life, and during 
his retreat at Montpellier, he says, " He resolved to im- 
" prove his understanding of the French language, not 
" towards speaking it, the defect of which he found many 
" conveniences in, but for the reading of any books, and to 
*' learn Italian, towards both of which he made a competent 
"progress." — Continuation of the Life of Clarendon, 
vol. iii. p. 905. 



27 

was the source of more essential deficiences 
than a want of modern language. It allowed 
no opportunities of getting rid of early and 
inevitable prejudices, no means of acquiring 
that general knowledge of man in a social 
state, which nothing but the actual practice 
and experience of various manners, habits, and 
systems of society can supply. To the want of 
this intimate acquaintance with the world and 
with their contemporaries, which existed more 
among the republicans than the royalists, may 
be attributed much of the narrowness and 
violence of their religious prejudices. To the 
same want of knowledge of mankind must be 
referred the strange, mistaken attempts they 
made at the re-establishment of a republic, 
after the retirement of Richard Cromwell, and 
the recall of the Long Parliament. To believe 
for a moment that the triumphant leaders of 
their forces would be contented never to 
aspire to any command in chief, but continue to 
receive all their commissions from the Speaker of 
the House of Commons, — a House of Commons 
over which they themselves had just exercised 
their own omnipotence, — betrayed such an ig- 
norance of human nature in general, and of civil 
history in particular, as proved them inadequate 
to the permanent government of the country, 



28 



whose wrongs they had so justly felt, and 
whose rights they had so nobly asserted. (1) 

That the imaginary perfections of a republic 
should have misled the minds of those who had 
recently smarted under the evils of an ill-defined 
and ill-administered monarchical government, 
cannot surprise. But it would seem, that even 
in our own days the science of politics was still 
in its infancy, or else that the early-acquired pre- 
judices of some individuals had prevented their 
drawing any comprehensive or practical deduc- 
tions from the lessons which have been already 
furnished by experience. In this light, it must 
be confessed, appear to the author those who 



(1) The editor of Mrs. Hutchinson's life of her husband, 
upon this subject, observes, that it was a great oversight, 
the army not having from the first received commissions 
from the Speaker of the House of Commons, instead of 
receiving them from the successive generals, and adds, 
that this method succeeded at first in France during the 
Revolution, " till some of the members of the executive 
" power leagued themselves with some of the military com* 
" manders." And was it ever otherwise ? Can it be other- 
wise ? Such are the judgments formed on events only, without 
referring to those first principles of human nature from 
which they must necessarily be deducted. These principles, 
if once well seized and defined by the mind, will prevent 
mistaken judgments on effects apparently militating against 
them, but which, in fact, will always be found to confirm 
and elucidate the general principle under which thev class. 



29 

can still prefer a republic to a limited monarchy, 
as the best mode of government, in the present 
advanced state of European society. It would 
seem that in estimating the advantages of the one, 
and the disadvantages of the other, all modern 
as well as all ancient history were forgotten, 
and that the last thirty years, which have, in 
fact, been a series of practical experiments in 
government* had been thrown away. Our own 
republican fit yielded to thefirst " soldatheureux" 
who had the boldness to seize the reins of 
power, and constitute himself a sovereign, with- 
out any legal restraint on his authority, or any 
check upon his will, but the habits of moderation 
acquired in other days. Much about the same 
time, the republic of Holland, after struggling for 
twenty-two years, in a state of fretful independ- 
ence, (sullied, too, by some frightful crimes,) 
ended by the re-establishment of the house of 
Orange in a limited power. But in less than a 
century, the republican leaven again at work, 
caused that country to be the first to adopt the 
mad doctrines of the French revolutionists, to 
reject with scorn the assistance of England, and 
finally delivered it up, bound hand and foot, the 
first subsidiary kingdom in Napoleon's great sys- 
tem of European subjection. 

The principal advantage of a monarchy, (a 



30 

constitutional, representative monarchy, always 
understood,) appears to be the calling into activity, 
and profiting by all the abilities of its subjects, 
without any fear of the exercise of those abilities, 
or of their success, making their possessors in- 
dependent of) or dangerous to the state. Had 
the Bill of Rights, and the positive obligation to 
the yearly assembly of parliaments, existed in 
Cromwell's time, Cromwell would have been a 
valiant soldier, or a bold and artful statesman, 
in the service of his country, without even har- 
bouring an idea of putting himself at the head 
of it. Had England succeeded in establishing 
herself as a commonwealth, w T ho could have 
ensured the Duke of Marlborough, triumphant 
over Lewis the Fourteenth, successful in his 
negotiations, powerful by his popularity on the 
Continent, and supported by a great party at 
home ; who, in a republic, could ensure his 
suffering himself to be deprived of his command, 
shorn of all his long-accustomed honours, and 
returning to the condition of any other ennobled 
citizen ? In our own immediate times, a still 
stronger instance occurs, of a still greater leader, 
successfully opposed to a still greater enemy, 
and placed in still more flattering and more 
intoxicating circumstances of power. Long as- 
sociated to the sovereigns, and commanding the 



31 

commanders of combined Europe ; finishing 
this career of glory by a battle, where the 
equally-poised struggle of moral as well as phy- 
sical courage was probably greater than in any 
of its bloody antecedents recorded in the history 
of the world : — who, in a republic, could have 
ensured this man, falling back into the ranks 
of common e very-day life, without either dis- 
turbing the country he belonged to, or being 
exiled from it ? 

Can any one still suppose, that the perpetual 
popular agitations of the ancient republics, and 
their perpetual and necessary jealousy of all their 
distinguished citizens, was the best method of 
calling forth and employing the time and ac- 
tivity of the lower orders of the state, or the 
mind and abilities of the upper orders ? 

However nobly, however patriotically any 
citizen of a republic may begin his career, if 
the circumstances of the times have called his 
abilities into action, if those abilities have been 
seconded by fortune, and supported (as must 
always be the case in all republics) by a party, 
good or bad — the most virtuous republican 
may begin to think, that the power which he 
sees (or fancies he sees) abused, would, for the 
mere good of his country, be better placed in 



32 

his hands, than left in those of the unworthy 
possessors, from whom he has wrested it. 

While our commonwealth's men were wholly 
intent on securing the independence of their 
etsablishments, from the possibility of a second 
surprise by any future Cromwell, the monarchical 
party were beginning to recover from some of 
those religious as well as political prejudices, 
which, before the civil war, they had shared in 
common with all the respectable part of the na- 
tion. Party-spirit, too, and the sort of contempt 
which the royalists wished to fix on the homely 
manners and puritanical cant of their adversaries, 
would alone have induced them, in their own 
manners and habits, and in the education of their 
children, to adopt every thing that could distin- 
guish them from their political opponents. To 
these causes were superadded the residence on 
the Continent not only of the unfortunate family 
to whose cause they were attached, but that of 
many of their own relatives, connections, and in- 
timates ; of all who were either in the im- 
mediate service of the prince, or had chosen to 
expatriate themselves, rather than acknowledge 
a government, which, however administered, 
they truly considered as usurped. We rind, 
therefore, during the protectorate, all the young 



33 

nobility sent to travel abroad, as a part of their 
education. The journals of Cromwell's parlia- 
ments are crouded with permissions for persons 
of distinction to go " beyond seas." And here 
we must admire the ease, we may almost say the 
noble confidence, with which these permissions 
were granted to persons of whose sentiments and 
wishes the Protector must have been well aware ; 
aware that they left their own country to join 
those, yet more eager than themselves to return 
to it by the destruction of his authority, by the 
restoration of their prince to his throne, and of 
themselves to their political importance. (1) Re- 
ligious disputes, and religious fears, had a yet 
greater share than political grievances in the dis- 



(L) Not less to be noticed is the manner in which all the 
nobility, even those who had taken the most active part 
before the settlement under Cromwell, were left by him 
unmolested in the enjoyment of their property and estates, 
so long as they abstained from open attempts against his 
authority. This was at least equal to the mercy and for- 
bearance shown at the Restoration by the opposite party. 
The well-known story of Cromwell telling some one who, 
upon his return to England, denied having seen Charles 
Stuart while abroad, that it was true the person in question 
had been blindfolded during the interview, is only a con- 
firmation of the fact that the vigilance of his government 
obviated the necessity of its cruelty. Compare this with 
the Revolution in France, during its whole progress from the 
reign of Louis the Sixteenth to that of Buonaparte. 

D 



34 

turbances of the times, and are always the most 
powerful motive of action in popular insur- 
rections. The parliamentary leaders, therefore, 
became almost all, during their long struggle, 
either zealots or hypocrites; their manners as- 
sumed a ferocity, their minds contracted an in- 
tolerance, and their language a jargon unknown, 
except among a few fanatics and polemical di- 
vines before the civil wars. During the tem- 
porary quiet under Cromwell, every one, even 
of those whose manners and tastes had been 
formed in better times, and whose minds were 
above the vulgar prejudices of the day, were 
yet obliged to conform to their dictates. All 
the troublesome observances prescribed, and 
all th eyestrain ts exacted by their clergy, were 
complied with, and all the nonsense they ut- 
tered was swallowed, for fear of the suspicion 
of a secret attachment to Popes, Kings, or 
Bishops. (1) 



(1) We shall hardly wonder at any subsequent dereliction 
of common sense in obedience to their injunctions, when 
we advert to the language of the pulpit in the years 1642 
and 1643, when, in the metropolis of the country, and 
before the House of Commons, they announced, that ; < the 
"fresh remembrance of sin is like a pea in an issue, that 
" keeps it open, and makes it run." (Sperstow's Fast Sermon 
before the House of Commons, 21st July, 1643.) " That 



35 

In vain the elegant and accomplished mind 
of Mrs. Hutchinson, laments the puerile quarrels 
of the sectaries among themselves, the wretched 
company they were obliged to keep, and the 
little vexations and tyrannies to which they were 
obliged to submit ; she complains of all this, 
as proceeding from the misgovernment of 
Oliver, whom all the honest republicans abhor- 
red, and sees not, or sees not sufficiently clearly, 
that they were the evils which the political 
state of the country, joined to its peculiar 
character and insular situation, inevitably occa- 
sioned. Nothing, indeed, could be so intolerable 



" satan, prelates, papists, malignants, shall be under-workmen, 
" and kitchen servants to him who hath his Jire in Sion, and 
" his furnace at Jerusalem, to purify and refine the vessels of 
" mercy for the Lord's house." (Rutherford's Sermon before 
the House of Commons, 31st January, 164-3.) That, " when- 
" ever the children are come to the birth, and there is no 
"strength to bring them forth, all the world cannot furnish 
"you with such another midwife as prayer." (Edward Rey- 
nolds's Fast Sermon before the House of Commons, 27th 
July, 1643.) And asked, if " we shall, like tame fools, 
" suffer every body to wipe our noses of God." (Ambrose 
Perne's Fast Sermon before the House of Commons, 31st 
May, 1643.) It is difficult to conceive, that such degrad- 
ing nonsense could have been contemporary with the dig- 
nified and sonorous periods of Clarendon, the pure English 
diction of Hooker, and the keen logical deductions of 
Barrow. 

D 2 



36 

to any cultivated mind, and where such minds 
existed, so impossible to last, as the state of 
manners and society then in England. The 
nation, proud of its victorious struggle for civil 
liberty and independence, and anxious to enjoy 
the fruits of it, found itself tyrannised over and 
dictated to, in all the details of social life, by a 
fanatical clergy. The extraordinary circum- 
stances of the times, and the nearly balanced 
parties of Puritans and Presbyterians, had lifted 
both into an authority little less arbitrary, and 
much more individually oppressive, than that of 
the Roman Catholic religion. To check the 
supposed advances of that religion, under the 
cover of episcopacy, had been the single point 
of union between two sects, both equally hating 
each other, and both equally intolerant. The 
proscription of every thing that would bear the 
name of amusement, in which the Presbyterians 
exceeded even the Puritans, left the people no 
place of public resort but the church. 

Here their preachers laboured continually to 
perpetuate the influence of those violent pre- 
judices, on which alone their own authority was 
founded. They excluded from the minds of 
their auditory every liberal idea, every enlight- 
ened and elegant pursuit, and endeavoured to 
confine their views of human nature, and the 



37 

affairs of men, within the narrow circle de- 
scribed by the particular creed of their own 
sect. 

Under these circumstances, the Restoration 
was welcome to the hearts of the people, from 
the moment Cromwell died, in spite of all the 
political objections to it, and all the integrity 
and abilities which supported these objec- 
tions. (1) 

The dull time-serving mind of Monk, would, 
otherwise, never have accomplished the recal of 
monarchy (2) ; nor would the sound understand- 
ings of those days, have allowed it to take place 
without endeavouring at some restrictions, on 
the future conduct of the returning monarch. 

The proposal for a committee to consider of 
such restrictions, when brought forward by 
Sir Matthew Hale in the Convention Par- 



(1) Neither the causes nor the effects of the Restoration 
are here considered in a political light, but merely as they 
affected the social habits and manners of the nation. 

(2) The author of the Constitutional History of England 
thus expresses himself: — " But it can hardly be said that 
" the King's Restoration was rather owing to him (Monk), 
" than to the general sentiments of the nation ; and almost 
" the necessity of circumstances, which had already made 
" every judicious person anticipate the sole termination of 
" our civil discord which they had prepared." — Hallam t 
vol. ii. p. 14-2. 

D 3 



38 

liament, was over ruled, without any farther de- 
bate. A mere declaration of Monk's, that he 
would not answer for the quiet, either of the 
army or the nation, if the recal of the King was 
delayed, proved sufficient to hush all fears, but 
those designedly excited. The author of the 
Constitutional History indeed says, that any re- 
strictions, previous to the King's being restored 
to a legal existence, were impossible, and blames 
the Convention Parliament, rather than the an- 
tecedent proceedings. Such, we know, was the 
universal joy expressed at the return of Charles, 
that he exclaimed, that it must have been his 
own fault, not coming sooner, since every body 
seemed so glad to see him. (1) 

An idea has been started lately by some per- 
sons, of no mean authority, that the Restoration 
materially injured the literature of England, 

It is certainly much easier to prove that it 
materially injured its morals. Those who had 
connected in their minds all the disgraceful pro- 
fligacy of the court of James the First, and all 
the arbitrary measures of his son, with Popery 
and Episcopacy ; those who abhorred the one, 
and aimed at abolishing the other, necessarily 



(1) See Clarendon, vol. v. p. 6. 



39 

professed a purity of morals, a sanctity of manners, 
and a severity of life, neither affected by their 
opponents themselves, nor exacted by them from 
their followers. 

During the excitation of the civil wars, and 
the powerful effects of that moral atmosphere, 
common to all great bodies of men, met together 
for one purpose, and intent on one object, the 
sanctified became severe, the severe zealots, the 
zealots enthusiasts. An army thus composed 
was invincible to its enemies, and certainly much 
less obnoxious to its friends than such bodies 
usually are. The ill conceived and destructive 
piety, which led them to deface and mutilate 
many of the beautiful public buildings that 
adorned their country, must ever be regretted. 
While we own they were in general guiltless of 
that licence, and those outrages on the persons 
and property of their fellow citizens, which are 
the usual concomitants, and one of the most af- 
flicting scourges of war (1) ; the newspapers of 



(1) Their serious and regular deportment must have 
made the greater and more favourable impression on the 
public mind, because one of the last armaments the country 
had witnessed, about fifteen years before, was that sent out 
on the unfortunate expedition to the isle of Rhe, under the 
Duke of Buckingham, in 1627. These troops returning to 
London, discontented, ill paid, and idle, are reported, by 

D 4 



40 

the day, then first resorted to as a vehicle for the 
expression of party feelings, and like all suc- 
ceeding party writings, often exaggerating the 
truth; — even these newspapers, on both sides, 
show how little violence was used on either, ex- 
cept at the actual moment of contention, or when 
the spirits of men had been soured and roused by 
some long and obstinately disputed siege. 

Lady Fairfax, who was taken prisoner on the 
retreat of her husband from Bradford to Leeds, 
in 1643, with the officer of dragoons behind 
whom she rode, was a very few days after sent 
back to Leeds, in the coach of the Earl of New- 
castle, the commander of the King's troops. (1) 

Instances might even be given, when in the 
heat of contest, those who had neither abilities 
nor disposition to take any active part in it, 
were left by their neighbours in the undisturbed 
possession of " the humble blessings of the life 
they loved." In a journal kept by a Yorkshire 
squire, an ancestor of the family of Daronev, 
who lived in the immediate neighbourhood of 



all their contemporaries, to have filled the metropolis with 
riots and disorder. 

(1) See " Short's Memorial of Thomas, Lord Fairfax," 
published in " Select l^racts relative to the Civil Jl'ars in 
" England, by Baron Maseres," vol. ii. p. 428. 



41 

Marston-Moor, during the period of the civil 
war, we find a memorandum of his going out 
hunting on the very day of that memorable 
engagement, which mentions every particular 
of the chase, without a single allusion either to 
the battle or to the state of the country about 
him, excepting as it related to his sport. 

The women remained universally unmolested, 
and attached to their domestic duties. They 
appeared in their only appropriate sphere of 
action, as the friends, helpmates, and com- 
panions of the families to whom they belonged. 
No woman started out of her sphere into un- 
seemly notice. No heroine excited a moment- 
ary enthusiasm at the expence of the more 
difficult virtues of her sex. The distinguished 
abilities of Mrs. Hutchinson were not unveiled 
to the public eye, till above a century after she 
died, and we may fairly suppose that many 
other females, whose natural endowments were 
not inferior, and who acted not less honourable 
parts, remain unknown to us. 

It is worthy of observation, and strongly 
corroborative of the entire alienation of the two 
countries, which had taken place previous to 
the Restoration of Charles the Second, that 
during his subsequent reign, while France 
attained a degree of eminence in literature, 



42 

which she has never since surpassed, while her 
dramatists excelled in the purity of their lan- 
guage, and the good taste of their compositions, 
the poets of England (with one splendid excep- 
tion) should have been so remarkably deficient 
in both these qualities. That the social life of 
France seems to have united in no common 
degree the gallantry of a former age, with the 
gaiety and freedom of later days, while our own 
country, relieved from the puritanical cant 
imposed by the sectaries, and already possess- 
ing the immortal works which had honoured 
the reigns of Elizabeth and James, should have 
fallen so much below her neighbours in every 
thing amenable to the laws of taste. That her 
wit should have continued so coarse, her 
pleasures have become so vulgarly licentious, 
and her restored theatre never have risen to a 
level with its former self. The truth is, that in 
France, the age of Louis the Fourteenth, as it 
has since been denominated, with all its in- 
creased luxuries and licence, had been imme- 
diately preceded by the romance, the enthusiasm, 
and the high tone of the age of chivalry, which 
had scarcely ended with Louis the Thirteenth. 

During the intermediate period, France had 
been under the control of two despotic ministers, 
who had so established the power of the crown, 



43 

and increased the influence of the court, that 
it became not only a centre from which the 
national taste emanated, but a standard to which 
all the nation endeavoured to conform. 

Thus their manners, their amusements, their 
gallantries, all partook of a strain of elevation, 
of romance, and of dignified restraint, which was 
more that of the preceding age than of their own. 
In England the case was far otherwise. In 
England the end of the age of chivalry was dis- 
graced by the contemptible character of James 
the First. The base profligacy of the sovereign, 
and his court, had degraded the character of 
princes, their favorites, and their adherents, and 
left behind such a legacy of disgust, as prevented 
the really elegant taste and pure manners of his 
son from acquiring that influence on the taste 
and manners of the country, which they would 
otherwise have obtained. This disgust rapidly 
increasing by the ill advised measures of Charles, 
both in church and state, soon settled into an 
abhorrence of every thing connected with a 
court, and, consequently, of that amenity and 
refinement of manners which ought to adorn 
and ennoble it. 

The circumstances which, for the twenty 
years preceding the Restoration, had served 
totally to alienate England from France, were at 



44 

the same time laying the foundation of an un- 
usually close connection between them. The 
Restoration sent home numbers, of whom some 
had been educated, and others had spent the 
youngest and gayest years of their life in France. 
They had necessarily adopted much of her man- 
ners, habits, and amusements. Those they found 
established in their own country, were certainly 
not likely to have superseded them, even if the 
enthusiasm of the moment had not been thrown 
into the scale in their favour. But such was the 
spring which the public mind had received, 
from the removal of the forced and unnatural 
pressure of the sectaries upon every unaffected 
feeling and innocent amusement, that the nation 
started at once from primness into profligacy, 
and from sobrietv to excess. The serious man- 
ners and moral habits of England were derided 
at the court as fanatical, and stigmatised in 
the country as disloyal. A religion which re- 
quired no other test from its followers than 
loving plum-porridge, and hating long prayers, 
and a loyalty which was to be distinguished by 
drinking, bonfires, and holiday-making, were 
certain of becoming immediately popular. 

From the Prince whose return they thus 
hailed, much might certainly have been ex- 
pected, even without the enthusiasm in his 



45 

favour, unavoidably excited by the circum- 
stances of the times. He had enjoyed the 
advantage of such an education as, perhaps, had 
never before fallen to the lot of any one born to 
a throne, and ascending that throne when the 
powers of his mind and body were in their 
fullest vigour. At the age of fourteen, he had 
been sent out of the reach of the triumphant 
forces of the Parliament, under the care and di- 
rection of the illustrious Clarendon. The next 
sixteen years of his life, were spent in various 
residences on the continent, at a time when the 
transactions of the countries which he inhabited 
were peculiarly interesting and instructive. He 
had the advantage of a personal acquaintance 
with many of the princes, and most of the states- 
men then acting a distinguished part in Europe. 
Instead of having passed his youth in the unin- 
structive or debasing intercourse with mankind, 
too common among princes, instead of being sur- 
rounded by flatterers fore-stalling his wishes, and 
acquiescing in his opinions, he had been early 
called upon to make personal exertions, and to 
submit to personal privations, inconveniences, 
and mortifications. He had been obliged to so- 
licit favour, instead of receiving flattery, and often 
to put up with slights and neglect from the ruling 
characters in all the states that witnessed his 



46 

long, destitute, and almost hopless exile. The 
little court which followed his desperate fortunes 
was full of the disputes, factions, and opposition, 
natural to men in circumstances, where every one 
was willing to lay upon his neighbour the blame 
of misfortunes which they all felt it difficult to 
bear. He had opportunities, seldom offered to 
princes, to prove the character of his friends, 
and to discover and study those of his enemies. 
In Scotland he had been obliged to submit to 
the most humiliating and offensive conditions 
imposed on his government, and to the most ar- 
bitrary and vexatious tyranny exercised upon 
himself. In England he had been exposed to 
almost every want, and every danger which hu- 
man nature can experience, and he owed, not 
only his liberty, but his life, to the fidelity and 
honour of some of the meanest of his subjects. 

In France he had to deal with hollow profes- 
sions of friendship, and powerful, though secret 
enmity, from Cardinal Mazarin. He had been 
an eye witness of all the petulant follies of the 
Fronde, and all the childish animosity of its 
abettors, against the person of an artful minister. 
Contemptible squabbles for undue authority, so 
destitute of rational end or aim, that to the sober 
eye of history, they more resemble the riots of 
schoolboys, than the steady resolves of men, to 



47 

pursue some distinct object of public utility, by 
serious means. With these advantages, Charles 
was recalled to a throne, which the vigorous mea- 
sures of a successful usurper had restored to 
him with a lustre and a respectability in the eyes 
of surrounding nations which it had seldom be- 
fore attained. He returned to a country, en- 
nobled by its exertions, and enlightened by its 
experience, and found himself in a situation, in 
which he might have profited by all the abilities 
that had been exerted, not only for but against 
the cause of his family ; by the keen piercing 
mind, great talents, and powerful eloquence of 
Anthony Ashley Cooper, ripened in twenty tur- 
bulent years of active employment ; and by the 
acknowledged integrity, tried affection, and pa- 
triotic loyalty of the virtuous Southampton, who, 
in proud unsubmitting retirement, had rejected 
every advance from Cromwell. 

He brought back with him the capacious in- 
tellect of Hyde, the tutelary genius of his exile ; 
who seeing, or thinking he saw, in a monarchical 
government, and the strict and equal admi- 
nistration of justice, his idea of the perfection of 
social order, would have continued to uphold, 
and support all, and more than all, the power 
we have since found can be safely invested in 



48 

any crown. (1) But all these advantages seem, 
like the good seed in the parable, which fell upon 



(1) The opinion contained in this sentence as to the 
bent of Lord Clarendon's politics, the author hopes will 
satisfy a lively and accomplished friend, who has lately 
submitted the character of Clarendon to the severe scrutiny 
of his accurate and discriminating mind. 

That the chancellor may, in some instances, have been 
involved in the rapacious measures of the day, his censurer 
has succeeded in proving. The only palliation which such 
measures can admit of, was the pecuniary uncertainties and 
difficulties in which every body had passed the twenty pre- 
ceding years, during which all delicacy on the subject of 
money, or presents offered or received, seems to have been 
shaken even in honourable minds. 

The persecuting spirit of the chancellor in religious 
opinions, which his critic next dwells on so severely, may 
fairly admit of the same palliation — the persecuting fa- 
shion and spirit of the times. In this spirit every sect of 
Christians had (to their disgrace) participated and rivalled 
each other. That the distinguished abilities and many 
virtues of Clarendon, did not enable him to soar above all 
the vices and all the prejudices of his age, must be a matter 
of regret ; for lowering an historical character no longer 
able to redeem its frailties, is taking away from the joint 
stock company of human nature a portion of those abilities, 
of that virtue, and of the fair fame attending on the exer- 
cise of both, which constitutes the value, and which elevates 
the tone of national character. 

The same indulgence cannot be allowed to prevent the 
detection of the many inaccuracies and inconsistencies of 
Clarendon's great historical work and memoirs. The author 
of the Constitutional History of England, treating of the 



49 

the sand, as quickly to have disappeared, and to 
have been as completely thrown away. A dis- 
position naturally careless, a temper naturally 
cheerful, lively spirits, and feelings on which 
nothing was capable of making a deep impres- 
sion, had empowered Charles so to support his 
adverse fortune, as to excite an opinion of his 
mind and understanding which belonged neither 
to his character or his habits. (1) The variety of 



same period, is bound to seek, by cross-examination of 
every contemporary witness, all lapses from truth, and all 
contradictions existing in a work, which both from the 
author, the part which he acted, and the times of which he 
treats, comes with such a weight of authority before the 
public. 

(1) This carelessness of disposition was probably much 
increased by his mother's conduct to him at a time of life 
when, if a proper use had been made of the extraordinary 
circumstances in which he was placed, the natural faults of 
his character, .might have been corrected instead of con- 
firmed. After he left the island of Jersey, at the age of 
sixteen, the policy of Cardinal Mazarin persuaded Hen- 
rietta Maria that it was necessary for her husband's affairs 
that the person of the Prince of Wales should be in France. 
No sooner was he arrived there, than the same policy dic- 
tated a total neglect of him, leaving him entirely dependant 
upon his mother, to make the English parliament believe 
that he was at Paris against the will of Mazarin. During 
the prince's residence there, from 1655 to 1657, his mother 
supplied him with clothes and other necessaries, and he 
never had the command of five guineas in his pocket. She 
thought proper, too, not to allow him to be initiated into 

E 



50 



scenes and of society, to which his exile had in- 
troduced him, had formed his manners, without 
correcting his character, and the necessity and 
the shifts to which he had been reduced, had 
sharpened his wits, without enlarging his in- 
tellect. The same carelessness which had 
enabled him to support his misfortunes with 
cheerfulness, now allowed him to bear his pros- 
perity with moderation. His much- extolled 
lenity to his enemies at his restoration, was, in 
fact, as entirely a consequence of his character, 
and as little an effort of his mind, as his former 
admired resignation. This lenity (from what- 
ever cause), and the easy, gracious manners 
which accompanied it, must naturally have in- 
creased his general popularity during the first 
years after his return. It seems to have had the 
still further effect of leading many contem- 
poraries, and some subsequent writers, into an 
erroneous estimation of the clemency which 
they have ascribed to him and to his govern- 



any sort of business, or even to make him sensible of the 
unhappy situation of the royal family, and of his country. 
To this mistaken conduct, and the expedients to which his 
total dependance with regard to money must have reduced 
him, may fairly be attributed much of his subsequent want 
of delicacy in the means of procuring it, and his careless- 
ness and prodigality in its disbursement. 



51 

ment. It is an attribute they will be found so 
little to deserve, that during his reign more 
persons perished on the scaffold for state of- 
fences, than in all the succeeding century, from 
the revolution to the present day. (1) 

Much of this intemperate effusion of blood 
may be attributed to the influence of the Duke 
of York ; but this was only another and a more 
baneful effect of the culpable carelessness which 
we have already noticed. 

James, with a very inferior understanding, a 
worse temper, and a narrower mind, had a much 
stronger impulse given to his character, by the 
doctrines and practice of his religion ; a religion, 
whose every fault, of the many laid to its charge, 
may be resolved into the single one (and its 
bitterest enemies need not seek for another), 
that of being too powerful a lever to be placed 
in the hands of so imperfect a being as man. 



(1) Ninety-eight persons were executed for state offences 
from the year 1660 to 1685. 



E 2 



COMPARATIVE VIEW. 



CHAPTER I. 

CONDUCT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY AT THE RESTORATION. 

DUKE of BUCKINGHAM. INFERIORITY OF THE 

TASTE, MANNERS, LITER ATUlti^, j^n SOCIAL HABITS 
OF ENGLAND, TO THOSE OF FRANCE AT THIS PERlUu. 

REASONS FOR IT. EFFECTS OF THE BAD TASTE 

OF THE TIMES ON MORALS AND ON SOCIETY. LORD 

ROCHESTER. EXCESSIVE DRINKING. KING'S BAD 

EXAMPLE. MEMOIRES DE GRAMMONT, ATALANTIS, 
DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 

Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, 
and the re-establishment of the royal family in 
England, the splendour of a numerous court 
would probably have been adopted in preference 
to the economical simplicity of a republic, even 
if the princes who constituted that court had 
not imported all their ideas of its scale, regu- 
lations, and amusements, from that of France. 

Clarendon, whose sober judgment anticipated 
this tendency, complains of Henrietta Maria 

*e 3 



54 

having already acted upon these ideas, even 
during their exile, in the formation of the house- 
hold of her son, the Duke of York, at a time 
when he had nothing to bestow upon his 
servants but empty nominations to unpaid 
offices. Necessity, indeed, had then often 
obliged both Charles and his brother to put off 
clamorous importunity with promises, as im- 
properly extorted as they were afterwards ill 
performed. 

On their return to England, the appointments 
in their hoiisoholda were rewards eagerly sought 
after, and often necessary to the support of those 
whose losses in the cause of royalty were thus 
inadequately, and thus only remunerated. The 
more wealthy nobility and great landholders of 
the country either returned with the king to take 
possession of their restored estates, or came 
forward to greet his arrival, and add lustre to 
his court, from the dignified retirement in which 
they had lived during his absence. 

The Duke of Buckingham, the playfellow of 
his earliest years, and the associate of many of 
his subsequent dangers, joined his triumphal 
entry to Whitehall (1), released from the durance 



(1) He rode bare-headed with Monk before the King on 
his entry into London. May, 1660. 



55 

in which a premature return to England had for 
sorqe time placed him. 

This distinguished person seems to have 
united every gift of nature and of fortune most 
coveted by men. Adopted by Charles the 
First from the moment of his father's untimely 
death, when he was little more than a year old, 
he was brought up entirely with the King's 
children, and, consequently, may be said to 
have been exposed to all the disadvantages 
generally attached to the birth of princes, with- 
out having a right to plead that very sufficient 
and sweeping apology for his errors and follies. 
Like them, too, called into active life, and to 
the government of his own affairs, as early as 
they are often called to the government of those 
of others, we find his character uniting all the 
faults inseparable from such a station. His 
great parts were unripened by application, and 
dangerous from self-sufficiency, his talents frit- 
tered away in useless or unprosecuted pursuits, 
his weight and importance in the country lost 
in the unsteadiness of his conduct, and the qua- 
lities of his heart smothered and rendered use- 
less by the volatility of his disposition, mistaking 
profligacy for pleasure, and prodigality for mag- 
nificence. Duped through his vanity by Louis 
the Fourteenth on his embassies abroad, and 

e 4 



56 

made a tool by his worthless associates in ad- 
ministration at home ; the persecutor of Lord 
Clarendon, whose great character he was well 
able to appreciate ; the satyrist of Dryden, 
whose genius his own talents and love of 
letters should have led him to admire and pro- 
tect. It has been justly said, that there is 
often as much good fortune in the distribution 
of posthumous fame, as in the acquirement 
of that bestowed by contemporaries. The Duke 
of Buckingham was certainly not lucky in 
either respect; his culpable neglect of the de- 
cencies of life, and of public opinion, was amply 
visited upon him in unmeasured abuse during 
his life ; and it is remarkable, that the same per- 
son should have inspired the most brilliant pas- 
sages of descriptive satire extant in the language 
of their country, to two of its most celebrated 
poets. To Dryden's masterly character of the 
living Zimri, Pope has added his death, drawn 
with equal beauty, although with less individual 
truth. The " worst inn's worst room" was the 
comfortable house of an agent, and in his last 
moments, if unsurrounded by the parade and 
show of his former life, he seems to have been 
equally exempt from the turbulence and agitation 
with which it had been accompanied. 
He had given early proofs of distinguished cou- 



57 

rage and presence of mind in the civil wars, both of 
his own country and those of France. He had 
twice refused to compound with the parliament 
for his great estates, and to abandon the cause 
of royalty. At last, wearied out by the length 
of an inactive exile, ill suited to his volatile cha- 
racter, he returned to England in the year l6o7> 
although under the ban of Cromwell, and, con- 
sequently, exposed to the forfeiture of his life. 
A considerable part of his large possessions were 
immediately restored to him by Lord Fairfax, a 
generous enemy, who seems to have accepted of 
their forfeiture with a view of returning them 
to the real owner. He accompanied the gift 
with that of his daughter's hand, and a still fur- 
ther increase of property. (1) 

However little conducive this marriage was to 
the permanent domestic happiness of the parties, 
from the dissimilarity of their sentiments, and 



(1) He was married at Nunappleton, in Yorkshire, Sept. 
1657. Anecdotes of the day tell us, that " when the Lord 
M Fairfax disliked the match with his daughter, not having 
" seen the Duke, his lady said, ' Ah ! but the Duke has 
" ' much of God in his face;' and so after Lord Fairfax 
"said so too." — Note,s copied from the Pocket-book of 
Mr. Richard Symonds, an Officer in Charles the First's 
Army. 



58 



from the Duke's subsequent licentiousness (1), 
yet it is stated, and probably with much truth, 
that the happiest period of his life was that 
which he spent in the country, at the house of 
his father-in-law, Lord Fairfax, before the restor- 
ation. His cultivated mind and the variety of 
scenes and of society which he had early 
witnessed, made his conversation and manners 
singularly lively and agreeable. His leisure was 
here passed respectably, and under those whole- 
some restrictions which his subsequent misuse 
of great wealth and power proved how much he 
required. At the restoration he came into the 
uncontrolled possession of above 25,000/. a year, 
an income at that time one of the very largest 
possessed by any English subject. The great 
advantages it afforded in procuring indulgences 
and luxuries, then of less easy access, and less 



(1) " The Duchess of Buckingham is likely to be blind; 
" a favour of her Lord's, which she has been ever very 
" thankful for ; but lately some friend in kindness endea- 
" voured to inform her judgment and reform her behaviour, 
" reasoned it with her, and represented her obligation to 
" such a husband ; upon which the little wise woman showed 
" some resentments to her Lord, but he soon made her 
" confess who this friend was, and a grievous bustle there 
" has been, but the poor creature is almost eaten up with 
" her case." — Lady RusselFs Letters to her Lord, 2d edit, 
p. 54. 



S9 

generally diffused than at present, certainly 
placed its possessor in a comparatively higher 
situation than that of any of our great land- 
holders in later times. At first his expences 
seem to have been dignified and princely ; his 
spacious residence in the Strand (1), established 
on the most magnificent footing, was constantly 
open to all foreigners of distinction, and all 
the French nobility, whose visits to England 
were now frequent. The two courts of London 
and Paris, for political reasons, encouraged this 
intercourse, and made their near family con- 
nection, as well as their amusement, often a cloak 
for other transactions, which, under any less 
plausible pretences, would have been immediately 
obnoxious to the English public. 

The King, and, indeed, all the royal family, 
soon after their return, accepted entertainments 
from many of the principal nobility. (2) The 



(1) He inhabited York-house, formerly the town resi- 
dence of the Archbishops of York. His extravagant ex- 
penditure obliged him to sell it to builders, who erected on 
its site the streets still called by his name and titles. He 
next inhabited Wallingford house, on the site of the pre- 
sent Admiralty. This he likewise sold in 1680, and pur- 
chased with Lord Shaftesbury a house in Dowgate, in the 
city, with some view of securing popularity among the 
citizens. 

(2) The first Lady Burlington, in a MS. journal in the 



60 

Duke of Buckingham's house was frequently 
thus honoured. His character in so many points 
resembled that of his still more unprincipled 
sovereign, that, although he was often in tem- 
porary disgrace, although the monarch was 
obliged to punish the factious subject, or in- 
competent minister, the man was always willing 
to recall the easy, profligate, amusing com- 
panion. The treasonable designs for which he 
was obliged to abscond in 1666, resolve them- 
selves into some silly association with a reputed 
conjuror (1) for exploring secrets in alchemy 
and judicial astrology, which it was at least as 
disgraceful in his enemies to convert into a 
serious accusation as it was in him to have 



possession of her descendant, the Duke of Devonshire, men- 
tions the King and the Queen Dowager supping with her 
one night, and the Duke and Duchess of York another, 
in a part of London not likely to be again inhabited by those 
honoured with royal visits, White Friars. 

(1) Dr. Heydon, whom he employed to cast the King's 
nativity, which was forbidden by law. In this sort of non- 
sense the Duke had acquired a belief in France, and the 
King was certainly not exempt from it, as we see by letters 
from his mother and from Lord Jermyn in 1656, marking 
their anxiety that he should see a person who had been so 
successful in predictions, that they proposed sending the 
man in question to the King, at the Hague, where he then 
was. — See Thurlow's State Papers, vol. ii. 



61 

given them the opportunity. (1) From the 
heavier charge of betraying the King's councils 
in 1673, he defended himself before the House 
of Commons in a speech, marked with all the 
lively frankness that belonged to his character. (2) 
Indeed, his eloquence, whenever it was employed 
on the popular side, which in his versatile poli- 
tics was frequently the case, does honour to 
his opinions, while his manner of expressing 
them forms a striking contrast to the long- 
winded, involved disquisitions since delivered in 
the same assembly by many hardly more steady 
politicians. (3) 



(1) It is remarkable that on occasion of his arrest and 
commitment to the Tower, he was guilty of the same folly 
that we have seen repeated in our own days, of mistaking 
form for principle, and wantonly disturbing the peace and 
endangering the lives of his fellow citizens, in opposing, by 
force and barricades, what he considered as an illegal arrest 
by the executive power. 

(2) It was upon this occasion that he said, " If I am a 
" grievance, I am the cheapest grievance this house ever 
« had." 

(3) Lord Clarendon mentions his eagerness upon some 
occasions in parliament : — " When the Irish Cattle Bill 
" was brought into the House of Peers, in 1667, the Duke 
" of Buckingham, who was seldom up before eleven o'clock, 
" came to the house the first in the morning, and staid till 
" the last at night ; for the debate often held from the 
" morning till four o'clock, and sometimes candles tvere 
" brought in." — Clarendon's Life, vol. ii. p. 112. 



62 



His strange protection of that still stranger 
character, Colonel Blood, ended, like most con- 
nections into which the careless allow themselves 
to be drawn by the designing and profligate, 
in attaching a part of the disgrace and obloquy 
due to the misdeeds of the one, on the folly of 
the other. The Duke of Buckingham's col- 
loquial wit, the quickness of his repartees, " his 
" soul of whim," have been often celebrated. 
His conference when recovering from an illness 
with a Roman Catholic priest, sent to him by 
the Duke of York, in hopes of making him a 
convert to his religion, evidently gave Swift the 
first idea of the reasoning of Lord Peter with 
his brothers Martin and Jack in the Tale of the 
Tub. Before the priest opens the subject, the 
Duke, taking up the cork of the bottle of wine 
on the table, says, " But all this while, father, 
" you take no notice of my fine gelding here. 
" Do but observe his exquisite shape ; what a 
" fine turned neck is there ! His eyes how 
"lively and full! His pace ho w majestic and 
" noble ! I'll lay a hundred guineas there is 
" nothing in Newmarket can compare with 
" him." 

Priest. " An't please your grace, I see no 
" horse." 

Duke, m Why, don't you see me play with his 



63 

" mane, stroke him under the belly, pat his 
" back, and manage him as I please ?" 

Priest. " Either your grace is merrily dis- 
" posed, or else your illness has a very unlucky 
" effect on your grace's imagination. Upon 
" my sincerity, I see nothing but a cork in your 
" hand." 

Duke. " How, my horse dwindled into a 
" foolish piece of cork ! Come, father, this is 
" very unkindly done of you, to turn the finest 
" gelding in Europe, whose sire was a true 
" Arab, and had a better genealogy to show 
" than the best gentleman in Wales or Scotland 
" can pretend to ■ It surprises me, puts me 

" to confusion, I can't tell what to say or do. 
" Therefore, at my request, once more observe 
" him more carefully, and tell me your 
"opinion." 

Priest. " Not to flatter, then, this melancholy 
" humour in your grace, which may but serve 
" to confirm and rivet it, I must roundly and 
" fairly tell your grace that it is a cork, and 
" nothing but a cork." 

Duke. " 'Tis hard that a person of my 
" quality\s word won't be taken in such a 
" matter, where I have not the least prospect 
" of getting a farthing by imposing on you. 
" — But, father, how do you make good your 



64 



" assertion ? I say still 'tis a horse, you tell me 
" 'tis a cork ; how shall this difference be made 
" up between us ?" 

Priest. " Very easily. For instance, I first 
" examine it (taking the cork from the Duke) 
" by the smell, and that tells me it is cork. 
" I next consult my sight, and that affirms the 
" same. Then I judge it by my taste, and still 
" 'tis cork, and my ears that have heard the 
" description of this bark a hundred times 
" concur in the same story. It is impossible 
" that all my senses should be bantered and 
" cheated in an affair of this nature, and they 
" are the proper judges to appeal to upon such 
" occasions." 

Duke. " Nay, since you are so positive, I 
" won't contest the matter with you, but e'en 
" let it be a cork. The fumes arising from my 
" illness, I perceive, had somewhat disordered 
" me. But now they are blown over, and I see 
" as plain as a pike-staff that 'tis nothing but a 
" cork. So now, father, if you please, to the 
" business in hand." 

The priest then brings forward the usual ar- 
guments from the literal acceptation of the words 
on which the doctrine of transubstantiation is 
founded ; the Duke recurs to his cork. " I see, 
" father, I must refresh your memory with this 



65 

" piece of cork, which I positively affirm once 
" more to be a horse. Just now you would be 
" governed by the senses in those matters that 
" properly belong to their tribunal ; but now you 
" disown the jurisdiction of the court, which is 
" not honestly done." 

Priest. " But in matters of faith." 
Duke. " And what of all that? No man 
" shall persuade me to believe against the plain 
" conviction of my senses. Here is a conse- 
" crated wafer ; you tell me 'tis God Almighty \ 
" I say, 'tis a piece of bread, and nothing else : if 
" I examine it by my taste, 'tis bread ; if by my 
" smell, sight, and touch, 'tis bread still." (1) 
The Duke thus covered the attempt on his 
protestant faith (such as it was) with a ridicule 
which the vindictive and bigoted James seems 
never to have forgiven. On the death of Charles, 
the Duke of Buckingham, no longer counting 
upon that indulgence and favour at court to 
which he had hitherto been accustomed, and 
having exhausted his princely fortune by every 
species of thoughtless extravagance and idle 
profusion, retired to his estates in Yorkshire. 



(1) See conference between the Duke of Buckingham 
and Father Fitzgerald, an Irish priest, George Duke of 
Buckingham's Works, vol. ii. p. 153. 

F 



66 

Here he passed the remainder of his life, which 
terminated in the same year with that of the 
short and infatuated reign of James. Here, at 
his manor of Helmsley, he excelled as a foxhunt- 
ing country gentleman in the entertainment of 
his neighbours, as much as he had formerly ex- 
celled as a courtier at London and Paris. Here, 
too, he still continued to amuse himself with 
writing ; but his want of all early application 
prevented that improvement in his compositions 
which might have been expected from the ma- 
turity of his talents. His Rehearsal, the only 
one of his three theatrical pieces which has sur- 
vived him, new in the idea, and lively in the 
execution, certainly gives a high opinion of the 
quickness of his invention ; and the happy pa- 
rodies it contains of passages in other pieces, all 
indeed sufficiently open to ridicule, inspire no 
mean opinion of his natural taste. But with 
good taste, the fashion of the day was so much at 
variance, that we find not only the works of the 
Duke of Buckingham, and his idle companions, 
but even those of the great poet he undertook 
to satirise, often disgraced by coarse profligacy, 
both of thought and of expression, deformed by 
slovenly carelessness, and divested of half their 
interest by a strange absence of all arrange- 



67 

merit, which their authors conceived to be only 
the privilege of genius. 

As the effects of a good or bad taste are as 
distinguishable in the moral affections and the 
habits of social life, as in literature or the fine 
arts, so the same coarse profligacy which too 
often dictated the verses of the " wits of 
Charles's days," pervaded their pleasures, dis- 
graced their talents, and curtailed their enjoy- 
ments. 

Lord Rochester, we may be sure, was not 
the only victim who sunk under the effects of 
extravagant intemperance, although his com- 
panions in vice had not previously risen to his 
distinction in its practice. 

Indeed, Lord Rochester seems to have in- 
herited the largest share of ill fame, for the 
shortest run of the indulgences which procured 
it, of any rake upon record. The Restoration 
found him at Oxford, from whence he was 
very early sent to travel in France and Italy, for 
he appeared at his return, when only eighteen, 
at the court of Charles, distinguished for 
his figure, talents, and familiarity with modern 
languages. To the reputation which he brought 
with him, he immediately added that of brilliant 
courage, by his conduct as a volunteer on board 
the fleet, in the campaigns of 1665 and 1666, 

f 2 



68 

against the Dutch. Hitherto his character was 
unsullied, his behaviour, both at college and 
abroad, had been irreproachable. The fashion 
of the day and a desire of notoriety seem alone 
to have plunged him into that course of wild 
debauchery which brought him to his grave at 
the early age of thirty-two, after enduring all 
the bodily sufferings of a premature decay, and 
all the severe regret and anguish of a lively 
intelligent mind, for time mispent, talents 
abused, and reputation thrown away. 

Habitual excess in drinking, that degrading 
infirmity of the north, to which loyalty had 
given a new pretence, was general upon all 
occasions of social meeting among men, whether 
for business or pleasure. 

The disorder and mischief attendant on 
inebriety seem to have increased with the in- 
creasing violence of political dissension : from 
this time to the Revolution they pervaded all 
orders of society. No dignity of situation, no 
responsibility of character were exempted from 
them. Sir John Reresby tells us, that in 16S6, 
at a dinner at Alderman Duncombe's, " the 
" Lord'Chancellor Jefferies, the Lord Treasurer, 
* (Hyde Earl of Rochester), and others, drank 
" themselves into that height of frenzy, that 
" among friends it was whispered they had 



69 

" stripped into their shirts, and that had not an 
" accident prevented them, they had got upon 
" a sign-post to drink the King's health." 

Mr. Evelyn gives us an account of a wedding 
at which he was present in 1683, " of one Mrs. 
" Castle to her fifth husband, a Lieutenant- 
" colonel of the cutty." (Train-bands probably.) 
" There was at the wedding the Lord Mayor, 
" the Sheriff, several Aldermen and persons 
" of quality, above all, Sir George Jefferies, 
" newly made Lord Chief Justice of England, 
" who, with Mr. Justice Wi things, daunced 
* with the bride, and were exceedingly merry. 
" These great men spent the rest of the after- 
" noon till eleven at night in drinking healths, 
" taking tobacco, and talking much beneath 
" the gravity of judges, who had but a day or 
" two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sidney." 
A more striking picture can hardly be given 
of the unseemly manners of the times. The 
tavern, as well as the houses of individuals, 
were the scenes of these convivial meetings. 
If women formed any part of the society, it 
was those of the lowest and most degraded 
order. 

From these orgies they sometimes resorted to 
the theatre, a mirror which reflected too truly 
their own manners and morals, to be at all likely 

f 3 



70 

to improve them. Sometimes they issued forth 
into the streets, to the annoyance of the sober 
part of society. The total want of all police in the 
metropolis, and the lax administration of criminal 
justice, are evident not only from the feats 
of Colonel Blood and his associates, but from 
many other disgraceful adventures of the times. 
The attack on Sir John Coventry was dictated 
by a spirit of vindictive revenge in the highest 
quarter. It is so unlike the naturally easy, 
careless character of the King, that one would 
almost suppose his anger to have been prompted 
by others, or exasperated by circumstances with 
which we are unacquainted. (1) An indecorous 



(1) To these circumstances (however inadequately they 
excuse such an outrage) the lately published Diary of 
Mr. Pepys furnish us with a key. It seems his brother, 
Sir William Coventry, at the time of his confinement in 
the Tower to prevent his intended duel with the Duke of 
Buckingham, expressed to Mr. Pepys much resentment at 
an intention of Killigrew's (then manager of the King's 
Theatre) to bring Sir William Coventry on the stage in a 
new piece, and to fix the satire indisputably on him ; he 
was to be represented ridiculously seated at a round table 
of a particular construction, which he had contrived for 
writing. Indignant at this attempt to make him publicly 
laughed at, " He had told Tom Killigrew, that he should 
" tell his actors, whoever they were, that did offer at any 
" thing like representing him, that he would not complain 
" to my Lord Chamberlain, which was too weak, nor get 



71 

jest made (1) in the House of Commons on the 
King's amours gave him such offence that he 
desired a lasting mark might be set upon the 
offender. The Duke of Monmouth, who then 
commanded the guards, seems to have under- 
stood the King's words as meant in their literal 
sense. Two of his officers, accompanied by some 
of their men, waylaid Sir John Coventry in the 
streets near where he lived ; he gallantly de- 
fended himself from their assault with the flam- 
beau of one of his servants, but was overpowered 
by numbers, and a stroke given him across the 
nose, which cut it to the bone. The House of 
Commons (as may be supposed) were indignant 
at this outrage on one of their members, and 
immediately passed the act against cutting and 
maiming, since known by the name of him 
whose ill usage gave rise to it. On the Duke of 
Monmouth's conduct for allowing such an at- 



" him beaten as Sir Charles Sedley is said to have done, 
"but that he would cause his nose to be cut" — Pepys's 
Diary, vol. ii. p. 312. 

(1) When a tax on playhouses had been proposed as a 
means of raising the supplies, it was opposed by the court. 
" The players," it was said, were the King's servants, 
M and part of his pleasure. Sir John Coventry asked, 
" Whether did the King's pleasure lie among the men or 
u the women that acted ? " — Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. 
p. 468. 

F 4 



72 

tack to have been made through his means, and 
under his direction, on the person of his friend 
(for such Sir John Coventry was), no comment 
can be necessary. 

We may certainly look back with satisfaction 
to the increased security of the laws, and to the 
improved authority of public opinion, when we 
recollect that the Irish adventurer Blood, by 
mere dint of undaunted impudence, and personal 
courage, was guilty of three separate attempts 
on the life of three distinguished individuals (1) 
in the metropolis, and not only escaped punish- 
ment, but by means of the Duke of Bucking- 
ham's ill-judged protection, succeeded in ap- 
proaching the person of the careless, unprincipled 
King. While Blood was in jail for robbing the 
Jewel Office, Charles was persuaded, out of 
curiosity, to see and examine the person who had 
attempted so extraordinary a theft. In this 
interview he not only avowed his seizure of the 
Duke of Ormond, but confessed having been en- 
gaged in a design on the life of the King him- 
self. He was to have been concealed with a 



(1) The seizure of the Duke of Ormond, in St. James's 
street, in December 1670; the assassination of Mr. Thymic, 
in Pall Mall, February 1681 ; and the attempt on the life 
of the Keeper of the Jewel Office, in 1671. 



75 

carbine in the high reeds growing by the Thames 
side above Battersea, where the King often went 
to swim, but declared that " when he had taken 
" stand in the reeds his heart was checked with 
" an awe of majesty, and he did not only relent 
" himself, but diverted the rest of his associates 
" from the design." The King was either flat- 
tered by the idea of the respect which his pre- 
sence had inspired to his intended assassins, or 
believed that by pardoning Blood he purchased 
security from the desperate accomplices, over 
whom he pretended a power of control. But 
not satisfied with pardoning the offences com- 
mitted against himself, he actually desired the 
Duke of Ormond not to prosecute for the out- 
rage from which he had suffered, gave Blood a 
pension, and allowed him to frequent the court. 
In I67I we find him, by Evelyn's Diary, one 
of a company at the Lord Treasurer Clifford's, 
" where dined M. de Grammont and several 
" French noblemen, and one Blood, that im- 
" pudent bold fellow, who had not long before 
" attempted to steal the imperial crown itself 
" out of the Tower. ***** How he came 
" to be pardoned and received into favour not 
" only after this, but several other exploits al- 
" most as daring, both in Ireland and here, I 
" never could understand. Some believed he 



m 

" became a spy of several parties, being well 
" with the sectaries and enthusiasts, and. did 
" his majesty service that way. * * * * This 
" man had not only a daring but a villanous 
" unmerciful look, and a false countenance, but 
" very well spoken, and dangerously insinu- 
" ating." (1) He seems to have been a sort of 
fanfaron assassin, who, by the strange circum- 
stances of the times, lived by a bad name, as 
others do by a good one. In his attack on the 
Duke of Ormond, it appears uncertain whether 
he meant actually to have carried him to Ty- 
burn, and there executed him, as was pretended, 
or only to have confined him till he had revoked 
his signature to some papers, which, as Blood 
affirmed, had deprived him of an estate in 
Ireland. Whatever were his intentions, the 
Duke of Ormond, at past sixty years old, was 
attacked in his coach when returning from the 
public dinner given by the city to the Prince 
of Orange on his first visit to England in KJ70. 
No less than six footmen always accompanied 
the Duke's carriage on occasions of ceremony, 
but as they could not all find place behind, he 
made them walk three and three, on each side 
of the pavement. The coach thus separated 

(1) Evelyn's Diary, vol. i. p. 437. 



75 

from its attendants, was attacked by Blood and 
five associates on horseback, going up St. James's 
Street to Clarendon House, at the top of x^lbe- 
marle Street (1), which the Duke then inhabited. 
He was pulled out of his carriage, tied behind one 
of the horsemen, and, in spite of his struggles, 
carried beyond that part of Piccadilly where 
Devonshire House now stands. Here he con- 
trived to unhorse the man before him, and both 



(1) On part of the space now occupied by Grafton Street. 
This was the house built by the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, 
the expense of which formed one of the futile charges 
brought against him by the parliament. Mr. Evelyn men- 
tions his admiration at first seeing this house, in 1665, in a 
letter to Lord Cornbury : — " I went with prejudices and a 
" critical spirit, incident to those who fancy they know any 
" thing in art. I acknowledge I have never seen a nobler 
" pile. ***** Here is state, and use, and solidity, 
" and beauty, combined. Nothing abroad pleases me better, 
" nothing at home approaches it." The Diary of the same 
person records, in little more than eighteen years, his me- 
lancholy feelings at "surveying the demolition of Clarendon 
" house, that costly and sumptuous palace of the late Lord 
" Chancellor Hyde, where I have often been so cheerful 
" with him, and sometimes so sad." He goes on to tell 
us, that it cost 50,000/. (an immense sum in those days), 
was sold, after the Chancellor's death, by his son to the 
young Duke of Albemarle for 25,000/., and by him " to 
" certain rich bankers and mechanics," who gave for it and 
the ground 35,000/. They immediately pulled the whole 
down, sold the materials, and erected Grafton Street on a 
part of the space. — See Evelyn's Diary, vol. i. p. 561. 



76 

fell together into the street. The Duke was so 
spent with struggling, that when his servants 
came up, he was unable to speak, and they first 
knew him by feeling his star. His life was thus 
saved, but the villains escaped in the obscurity 
of a December night ; in the then dark streets 
of London. 

The licence of the late civil wars had ac- 
customed the people to bold attacks on indivi- 
duals, and the executive government seems to 
have been careless or afraid of exerting those 
powers which would have been necessary to re- 
store habits of order and regularity, in which, 
as we have shown, the government itself was 
deficient. 

The King set an example of libertinism, which 
acquired neither dignity nor decency by his 
practice of it. Louis the Fourteenth, not less 
morally guilty than Charles, by the imposing 
gravity of his manners, by his attention to the 
decorum of those of others, together with the 
splendid and dignified magnificence with which 
he encircled his pleasures, prevented both 
himself and his court from falling into the dis- 
repute and disgrace which vice, in whatever 
rank, can only avoid, by affecting the senti- 
ments, and, as far as possible, the outward de- 
meanour of virtue. But Charles had lived too 



77 

long as a wanderer and an exile to re-assume 
with grace the stately habits of royalty. The 
careless ease of his manners pervaded his prin- 
ciples, his sentiments, and his estimation of 
those of others. The restraints due to public 
opinion, and those necessary even for the interest 
of his pleasures, which he practised not himself, 
he exacted not from his companions. His mis- 
tresses, therefore, were as deficient in the de- 
licacy of their sentiments, as in the fidelity of 
their conduct, and respected themselves as little 
as they did him. 

Of the two historians of the court of White- 
hall, the one, an Englishman only by name 
and family, selected a hero from his adopted 
country, very proper to figure in the society and 
scenes he so gaily describes. Comte Anthony 
Hamilton has adorned the memoirs of his 
relation, the Comte de Grammont (1), with the 



(1) The Due de St. Simon tells us, that it was the hero 
himself to whom the public is obliged for the publication 
of these memoirs: — " Ce fut lui-meme, qui rendit 1800 
" francs pour le manuscrit ou il etoit si clairement traite de 
" fripon. Fontenellc, censeur de l'ouvrage, refusoit de 
" l'approuver par £gard pour le Comte. Celui-ci s'en 
" plaignit au Chancelier, a qui Fontenelle dit les raisons de 
" son refus d'approbation. Le Comte de Grammont, moins 
" delicat, et ne voulant pas perdre les 1800 francs, forca 



78 

graces of an unrivalled style, and much natural 
wit, together with a wish to make the best of 
the principal actors, and a good taste which 
certainly belonged much less to their adventures 
than to his lively account of them. 

The other, Mrs. Manley, in a clumsy fiction, 
has detailed the disgraceful amours of the 
Duchess of Cleveland, and other intrigues of the 
day, with a coarseness which even her sex could 
not correct, and which has already consigned 
the Atalantis to that oblivion at which Pope 
significantly hinted, under the prediction of an 
immortality dependent on the caprices of female 
favour. (1) 

But even the wit of Comte Hamilton, the 
charm of his style, and the varnish which with a 
light and rapid touch he passes over the cha- 
racters he draws, and the adventures he relates, 
cannot conceal from us their depravity. 

The Duchess of Cleveland rivalled Charles 
himself in inconstancy, and although by birth 
the equal of the La Valieres and Montespans of 



" Fontenelle d'approuver pour l'impression. N. B. Je tiens 
" ce fait de Fontnelle lui-meme." — Mem. du Due de 
St. Si?no?i. 

(1) As long as Atalantis shall be read, 
Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed. 

Rape of the Lock. 



79 

Louis the Fourteenth, she redeemed her frailty 
neither by the repentance of the one, nor the 
wit of the other. 

Her father, Viscount Grandison, had died, 
soon after her birth, of wounds received in the 
King's service at the battle of Edge Hill. She 
had been married the year before the Restor- 
ation to Roger Palmer, then a student in the 
Temple, the heir to a considerable fortune in 
Ireland, and two years afterwards created Earl 
of Castlemaine. Of him, after he had acquired 
his title and resigned his wife, we hear little 
till the next reign, except that he contrived to 
escape the murderous evidence of Oates andDan- 
gerfleld on the popish plot. (1.) After the ac- 
cession of James, Lord Castlemaine reappears 
as the King's unwelcome ambassador to Pope 
Innocent the Eleventh. He seems to have been 
almost as unfortunate in the acceptance of a 
public employment, as he had been in the 
choice of a domestic companion, hardly better 
treated in his diplomatic capacity at Rome, 
than as the husband of a profligate beauty 
at home. He had been separated from her in 
1661, after the birth of adaughter, who, although 
she retained the name of Palmer, was desig- 

(1) See his trial in the State Trials by Howell, vol.xii. 
p. 598. 



80 

nated, on the confirmation of her mother's 
favour, by the suspicious title of the adopted 
daughter of the King. (1) That the avowed 
mistress of that King should be the wife of 
another man, taken from a high rank in so- 
ciety, and raised to the highest by his power 
and her misconduct, was something new to the 
country. For the long period of 180 years, 
from the days of Edward the Fourth and Jane 
Shore, England had witnessed no regularly, 
established royal mistress. 

It is easy to conceive the effect this novelty 
must have had on all that part of the nation, 
whose morality was strengthened and upheld 
by their political principles, and whose abhor- 
rence to kingly power and prerogative was thus 
confirmed by the abuse of both. 

Indeed, the weakness of Charles's private life, 
as well as the culpable errors of his govern- 
ment, soon found censurers and satirists even 
in his own court, and among his immediate 
companions. They certainly anticipated all the 
abuse, and even exceeded the freedom with 
which succeeding times have treated the cha- 
racters and conduct of princes. (2) 

(1) She was married, in 16 74-, to Thomas Lennard. Earl 
of Sussex. 

(2) See the State Poems, and all the satires of the times. 



81 

If we may believe the scandalous chronicle 
of the day, the Duchess of Cleveland had no 
right to complain of the King's inconstancy, or 
of the associates he gave her in his favour. 
The admirer of Jacob Hall the rope-dancer 
could not reproach the King with a passion for 
Nell Gwinne. 

But although her jealousy was excited neither 
by delicacy of sentiment nor constancy of 
attachment, she was sufficiently roused when 
the King's volatile fancy seemed about to settle 
upon any body likely to share the empire she 
assumed in his court, or to curtail the means of 
supporting the expensive habits in which she 
lived. 

Violent in temper, and libertine in disposition, 
she was insatiable in her demands for money, and 
perfectly insensible to the odium which the 
King's blindness or indifference to her extrava- 
gance and infidelity entailed upon him(l) as 
well as herself. Too much given up to her own 
indulgences to attempt acquiring any consider- 
able influence in politics, the circle which sur- 
rounded her at Whitehall was composed of all 



(1) See a mock speech made for the King on the opening 
the session of parliament in 1676, State Poems, vol. iii. 
p. 84. 

G 



82 

the young, the gay, and the licentious, who 
while treading the path of pleasure with their dis- 
solute monarch, were glad to suppose themselves 
in the road to preferment by his favour. When 
he had at last shaken off her yoke, and placed 
himself under the still more disgraceful bondage 
of the Duchess of Portsmouth, paid by France 
to make his pleasures subservient to the pur- 
poses of that government, and to the dishonour 
of his own, the Duchess of Cleveland claimed the 
continuance of his protection in a manner which 
proved how little she deserved it. In a letter 
yet extant she avows her continued frailties, 
without either repentance or shame, and seems 
only anxious still to associate the degraded King 
in her private piques, and still to make him a 
party in her disgraceful amours. This letter is 
addressed by her to Charles from Paris in I678, 
and is characteristic at once of the vulgarity of 
her mind, and the licentiousness of her conduct. 
It is curious, too, from the unbounded belief 
in predictions and judicial astrology which it 
supposes in the King, and for the severe truths 
which the writer tells him through the mouth of 
the enemy whom she was labouring to ruin. It 
was copied literatim by Gray the poet, about the 
year 1762, and is thus endorsed by him : " Copy 
" of a letter from the Duchess of Cleveland to 



83 

" Charles the Second, from the original, now in 
" the Earl of Berkshire's hands (1731). This is 
" the letter mentioned by Burnet in his history 
" I678, which ruined Montague with the King, 
" and he came over upon it, without being re- 
" called, the Earl of Sunderland succeeding him 
" as ambassador. The astrologer is probably 
<c the same person whom the Queen Mother, and 
" her favourite, the Lord Jermyn, recommended 
" to the King in January 1656, as having ex- 
" actly foretold all that befell the Cardinal Ma- 
" zarine and the Prince of Conde. He was a 
" Hugenot gentleman, born in France, but of 
" Irish parentage. (1) 

Although this letter has been printed in the 
appendix to Harris's life of Charles the Second, 
it is so illustrative of the character of the court, 
as well as of the Duchess of Cleveland, that it 
may not be unacceptable to the reader. 



THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND TO CHARLES THE 
SECOND. 

Paris, Tuesday 28th, 1678. 

I was never so surprised in my holle life time 
as I was at my coming hither to find my Lady 



(1) See Thurlow's Papers, vol. i. p. 678. and 691. 
G 2 



84 

Sussex (1) gone from my house and monestry, 
where I left her, and this letter from her which I 
here send you the copy of. I never in my holle 
life time heard of such government of herself as 
she has had since I went into England. She has 
never been in the monestry two days together, but 
every day gone out with the embassadour, (2) 



(1) Anne Palmer, her daughter, born in 1660, married in 
1674 to Thomas Lennard, Earl of Sussex. 

(2) Ralph Montagu, second son of Edward, Lord Mon- 
tagu, of Boughton. He was first sent ambassador to France, 
in 1669, by Charles the Second, and afterwards made 
master of the great wardrobe ; both of which appointments 
he lost (it is believed) from the effect of this letter. He 
was created Viscount Mounthermer and Earl of Montagu, 
by William and Mary, in 1689, and Duke of Montagu, by 
Queen Anne, in 1705. He married Elizabeth, daughter 
of Thomas Wriottesley, Earl of Southampton, half sister 
to Rachael Lady Russell, and widow of Joceline Percy, 
the last Earl of Northumberland. It is of this lady, and 
of Montagu's attentions to her before their marriage was 
settled, that Madame de la Fayette gives the following 
account, in a letter to Madame de Sevigne, dated the 
15th of April, 1673 : — " Madame de Northumberland me 
" vint voir hier ; j'avois ete la chercher avec Madame de 
" Coulanges : elle me parut une femme qui a ete fort belle, 
" mais qui n'a plus un seul trait de visage que se soutienne, 
" ni ou il soit reste le moindre air de jeunesse ; j'en fus 
" surprise ; elle est avec cela mal habillie, point de grace, 
" enfin, je n'en fus point du tout eblouie. Elle me parut 
" entendre fort bien tout ce qu'on dit, ou pour mieux dire, 
" tout ce que je dis, car j'etois seule. M. de la Roche- 



85 

and has often layen four days together at my 
house, and sent for her meat to the embassadour, 
he being alwaieswith her 'till five o'clock in the 
morning, they two shut up together alone, and 
would not let my maitre-d'hotel wait, nor any of 
my servants, onely the embassadours. This has 
made so great a noise at Paris, that she is 
now the wholle discours. I am so afflicted that 
I can hardly write this for crying, that a child 
that I doated on, as I did on her, should make 
me so ill a return, and join with the worst of men 
to ruin me ; for sure never any malice was like 
the embassadours, that onely because I would not 
answer to his love, and the importunities he 
made to me (1), was resolved to ruin me. I 
hope your Majesty will yet have that justice and 
consideration for me, that (tho* I have done 
a foolish action) you will not let me be ruined 
by this most abominable man. 

" foucault et M. de Thianges qui avoient envie de la voir, 
" ne vinrent que comme elle sortoit. Montagu m'avoit 
" mande qu'elle viendroit me voir: je l.ui ai fort parle - d'elle ; 
" il ne fait aucune facon d'etre embarque a son service, et 
" paroit tres rempli d'esperance." — Lettres de Madame de 
Sevigne, vol. ii. p. 340. 

(1) Other readings of the scandalous chronicle say, that 
the converse of this statement was the true cause of the 
Duchess's complaints of Montagu, and that he did not reply- 
to her importunities See Burnet, vol. i. p. 422. fol. edit. 

G 3 



86 

I do confess to you, that I did write a foolish 
letter to the Chevalier de Chatilion, which letter 
I sent enclosed to Madame de Pallas, and sent 
hers in a packet I sent my Lady Sussex, by 
Sir Harry Tychborn, which letters she has 
either given to the embassadour, or else he had 
it by his man, to whom Sir Harry Tychborn 
gave it, not finding my Lady Sussex ; but as 
yet I do not know which of the waies he had 
it, but I shall know, as soon as I have spoke 
with Sir Harry Tychborn ; but the letter he 
has, and I doubt not but he either has, or will 
send it to you. Now all that I have to say for 
myself is, that you know, as to love, one is not 
mistress of one self, and that you ought not to 
be offended with me, since all thinges of this 
nature is at an end with you and I ; so that 
I could do you no prejudice ; nor will you 
(I hope) follow the advice of this ill man, who 
in his hart I know hates you ; and were it for 
his interest would ruin you too, if he could ; 
for he has neither conscience nor honour, and 
has several times told me that in his hart he 
despised you and your brother, and that for his 
part, he wished with all his hart, that the Par- 
liament would send you both to travell ; for that 
you were a dull ungovernable fool, and the 
Duke a willful fool ; so that it was yet better to 



87 

have you than him ; but that you alwaies chose 
a greater beast than yourself to govern you ; 
and when I was to come over, he brought me 
two letters to bring to you, which he read both 
to me before he sealed them : the one was a 
mans, that (he sayd) you had great faith in ; 
for that he had several times fortold things to 
you, that were of consequence, and that you 
believed him in all things, like a changeling as 
you wer«, and that now he had writ you word, 
that in a few months the King of France or his 
son were threatened with death, or at least a 
great fit of illness, in which they would be in 
great danger, if they did not die, and that there- 
fore he counsel' d you to defer any resolutions 
of war or peace till some months were past ; for 
that if this happened, it would make a great 
change in France. The embassadour, after he 
had read this to me, said, " Now the good of this 
is (says he), that I can do what I will with this 
man; for he is poor, and a good sum of money 
will make him write whatever I will." So he 
proposed to me, that he and I should join 
together in ruining my Lord Treasurer (1) and 
the Duchess of Portsmouth, which might be 



(1) Sir Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby, afterwards Duke 
of Leeds, appointed Lord High Treasurer August, 1673. 

G 4 



88 

done thus. This man, tho' he was infirm and 
ill, should go into England, and there after he 
had been a little time, to solicit you for money, 
(for that you were so base, that tho' you em- 
ployed him, you let him starve, so that he was 
obliged to give him 501., and that the man had 
writ several times to you for money) — " oh ! 
(says he) when he is in England, he shall tell the 
King things, that he forsees will infallibly ruin 
him, and so wish those to be removed, as having 
au ill star that would be unfortunate to you, if 
they were not removed, but if that were done, 
he was confident you would have the gloriousest 
reign that ever was. This (says he) I am sure 
I can order so as to bring to a good effect, 
if you will ; and in the mean time I will try 
to get Secretary Coventry's place (1), which he 
has a mind to part with, but not to Sir William 
Temple, because he is the Treasurer's creature, 
and he hates the Treasurer ; and I have already 
employed my sister (2) to talk with Mr. Cook, 
and to send him to engage Mr. Coventry not 
to part with it as yet, and he has assured my 



(1) Sir William Coventry, appointed Secretary of State 
July, 1672. 

(2) Elizabeth Montagu, married to Sir Daniel Harvey, 
who had been ambassador to Constantinople. 



89 

Lady Harvey he will not, and my Lord Trea- 
surer's lady(l) and Mr. Bertie (2) are both of 
them desirous I should have it ; and when I have 
it, I will be damned if I don't quickly get to be 
Lord Treasurer, and then you and your children 
shall find such a friend as never was ; and for 
the King, I will find a way to furnish him so 
easily with money for his pocket and his 
wenches, that he will quickly oust Bab. May, and 
lead the King by the nose." So when I had 
heard him out, I told him, I thanked him, but 
that I would not meddle in any such thing, and 
tli at, for my part, I had no malice to my Lady 
Portsmouth or the Treasurer, and therefore 
would never be in any plot to destroy them ; 
but that I found the character the world gave 
of him was true, which was, that the devil was 
not more artful or designing than he was, and 
that I wondered at it ; for that sure, all these 
things working in his brains must make him 
very uneasy, and would at last make him 
mad. 'Tis possible you may think I say this 
out of malice : 'tis true he has urged me 
beyond all patience ; but what I tell you here 



(1) Lady Bridget Bertie, second daughter of Montagu 
Bertie, Earl of Lindsey. 

(2) Peregrine Bertie, brother to the above lady. 



90 

is most true, and I will take the sacrament 
of it, whenever you please. 'Tis certain 1 
would not have been so base as to have in- 
formed against him, for what he sayed before 
me, had he not provoked me to it in this 
violent way that he has. There is no ill thing 
which he has not done to me, and that without 
any provocation of mine, but that I would not 
love him. Now as to what relates to my daughter 
Sussex, and her behaviour to me, I must confess 
that afflicts me beyond expression, and will do 
much more, if what she has done be by your 
orders ; for tho' I have an entire submission 
to your will, and will not complain of whatever 
you inflict upon me, yet I cannot think you 
would have brought things to this extremity 
with me, and not have it in your nature ever to 
do no cruel tiling to any thing living. I hope, 
therefore, you will not begin with me, and if 
the ambassador has not received his order from 
you, that you will severely reprehend him for 
this inhuman proceeding : besides, he has done 
what you ought to be very angry with him for ; 
for he has been with the King of France, and 
told him that he had intercepted letters of mine 
by your order, who had been informed that 
there was a kindness between me and the 
Chevalier de Chatilion ; and therefore you bid 



91 

him take a course in it, and stop my letters, 
which accordingly he has done, and that upon 
this you ordered him to take my children from 
me, and to remove my Lady Sussex to another 
monestry, and that you were resolved to stop 
all my pensions, and never to have any regard 
for me in any thing, and that if he would 
oblige your Majesty, he should forbid the 
Comte de Chatilion ever seeing me, upon the 
displeasure of losing his place and being forbid 
the court, for that he was sure you expected 
this from him. Upon which, the King told him 
that he could not do any thing of this nature j 
for that this was a private matter, and not for 
him to take notice of, and that he could not 
imagine you would be so angry, or indeed to be 
at all concerned ; for that all the world knew 
that all things of gallantry were at an end with 
you and I. That being so, and so public, he 
did not see why you should be offended at my 
loving any body. That it was a thing so 
common now-a-days, to have a gallantry, that 
he did not wonder at any thing of this nature. 
And when he saw the King take the thing thus, 
he told him, that if he would not be severe to 
the Chevalier de Chatilion upon your account, 
he supposed he would be so upon his own; for 
that in the letters he had discovered, he found 



92 

that the Chevalier had proposed to me the 
engaging of you in the marriage of the Dauphin 
and Mademoiselle, and that was my greatest 
busyness into England ; that before I went over 
I had spoke to him of the thing, and would 
have engaged him in it, but that he refused it; 
for that he knew very well the indifference you 
had, whether it were or no, and how little you 
cared how Mademoiselle was married. That 
since I went to England 'twas possible I might 
engage somebody or other in the matter to 
press it to you, but that he knew pretty well, 
that in your hart you cared not whether it was 
or no, that this business sett on foot by the 
Chevalier. Upon which the King told him, 
that if he would show him any letters of the 
Chevalier de Chatilion to that purpose, lie 
should then know what he had to say to them ; 
but that till he saw those letters, he would not 
punish him without a proof for what he did. 
Upon which the ambassador showed a letter, 
which he pretended one part of it was a double 
entendre. The King said he could not see 
there was any thing relating to it, and so left 
him, and said to a person that was there, " Sure 
the ambassador was the worst man that ever was, 
for because my Lady Cleveland will not love 
him, he strives to ruin her the basest in the 



93 

world, and would have me sacrifice the Chevalier 
de Chatilion to his revenge, which I will not 
do, till I see better proofs of his having meddled 
with the marriage of the Dauphin and Made- 
moiselle, than any yet that the ambassador has 
showed me." This, methinks, is what you cannot 
but be offended at, and I hope you will be 
offended with him for his whole proceeding to 
me, and let the world see that you will never 
countenance the actions of so ill a man. I had 
forgot to tell you, that he told the King of 
France, that many people had reported that he 
made love to me, but that there was nothing 
of it, for he had too much respect for you to 
think of such a thing. As for my Lady Sussex, 
I hope you will think fit to send for her over, 
for she is now mightily discoursed of for the 
ambassador. If you will not believe me in this, 
make enquiry into the thing, and you will find 
it to be true. I have desired Mr. Kemble to 
give you this letter, and to discourse with you 
more at large upon this matter, to know your 
resolution, and whether I may expect that 
justice and goodness from you, which all the 
world does. I promise you that for my conduct 
it shall be such, as that you nor nobody shall 
have occasion to blame me; and I hope you will 
be just to what you said to me, which was at my 



94 

house, when you told me you had letters of 
mine, you said, " Madam all that I ask of you 
for your own sake is, live so for the future as 
to make the least noise you can, and I care not 
who you love." (1) Oh, this noise, that is, had 
never been, had it not been for the ambassador's 
malice. I cannot forbear once again saying, I 
hope you will not gratify his malice in my 
ruine. 



After the perusal of this letter, we must 
allow that if the morals of women are not in 
fact much improved, their sentiments are at 
least somewhat refined and their mode of com- 
municating them somewhat less offensive. Xo 
gentlewoman could now be the author of such 
a letter. A courtezan would hardly avow such 
morality, and a housemaid would express herself 
in better English. 

The old age of the Duchess of Cleveland 



(1) Aware, as the King seems to have been, by these 
words, of the Duchess of Cleveland's character, one must 
wonder at his giving any credit to a letter so visibly dic- 
tated by malice and disappointment. 



95 

was such as might have been expected from 
her preceding life. In her latter days she con- 
tracted a marriage with a person distinguished 
in the annals of gallantry by the title of Beau 
Fielding. He was indeed of the ancient and 
noble family of the Earls of Denbigh. In the 
Tatler, where his character is given under the 
name of Orlando the Fair, it is remarked that 
on the painting of his carriage was displayed 
an eagle, which is the blazon of that family as 
descendants from an elder branch of the Counts 
of Hapsbourg, now on the throne of Austria. 
The title of Beau Fielding, it would seem, was 
merited by his remarkable personal beauty. 
This he took every occasion to display, and 
every means to augment by dress and decoration. 
The admiration he inspired, and the success he 
obtained, made him a coxcomb. His vanity 
led him to mistake notoriety for distinction. 
His equipage, his own dress, and that of his 
servants, all differed from those of the rest of 
the world. His servants wore yellow coats with 
black sashes, and black feathers (the Austrian 
colours), and he himself appeared sometimes in 
a dress quite differing from the form of the day, 
sometimes exceeding it both in fashion, make, 
and magnificence. The particulars given of him 



96 

in the Tatler (1), and those we learn from his 
trial for bigamy (for it was thus his marriage 
with the Duchess of Cleveland was dissolved), 
curiously mark the difference between the gay, 
bullying, boasting beau of that day, and the 
grave, solemn, negligent coxcomb of this ; the 
one professing idleness, and jealous of being 
supposed to know any thing beyond the ritual 
of a fine gentleman, or to bestow time upon any 
thing but love, the tavern, and the ladies ; the 
other affecting occupation that he has not, 
shielding his insignificance under the mask of 
business, his dulness under that of gravity, and 
recommending himself to women by professing 
inattention to them. Less fortunate indeed 
than his predecessor, who was always able to 
distinguish himself and soar above his com- 
petitors by the richness of his embroidery or the 
breadth of his lace, the fine gentleman of the 
present day, after the most laudable exertions, 
often finds it cruelly difficult to mark his in- 
dividuality, amidst a host of pretenders, all 
arrayed in the same blue coat, as well as the 
same affectation of character. 

The Duchess of Cleveland died within two 



(1) Tatler, Nos. 51. and 52. 



9? 

years after the rupture of this incongruous mar- 
riage, at the age of sixty-seven, Like all fe- 
males elevated into public notice by beauty 
only, unsupported either by virtue or talents, 
her old age was contemptible and her death 
unregretted, even by the children who owed 
their elevation to her favour. 



H 



98 



CHAPTER II. 

EFFECTS OF THE RESTORATION ON FEMALE MANNERS 

AND SOCIAL EXISTENCE. MARRIAGES OF THE YOUNG 

NOBILITY. THE TALENTS OF WOMEN ENTIRELY 

NEGLECTED IN THEIR EDUCATION. LADY FALKLAND. 

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. INFREgUENCY AND 

DULNESS OF PRIVATE LETTERS. DIARY OF THE FIRST 

LADY BURLINGTON. LETTERS OF LADY RUSSELL AND 

LADY SUNDERLAND. CARDS AND PLAY CONFINED TO 

THE COURT. FALSE IDEA OF THE MANNERS OF ENG- 
LAND GIVEN BY THE WRITERS OF THE DAY. 

Except within the circle of Whitehall no ha- 
bitual intercourse of society seems to have taken 
place in London, even among those whom simi- 
larity of taste or disposition might have made 
agreeable to each other. Persons formal Iv 
visited and received visits from their own 
family and connections only. No women fre- 
quented the court, or formed any part of its so- 
ciety, except those attached to the households of 
the royal family, or whose parents or connec- 
tions were employed by them ; indeed, the 
Court and Country soon began to form two se- 
parate parties, which had very little in common 
with each other. The difference observable in 



99 

their manners, and habits of life, were most de- 
cided in every thing that related to female so- 
ciety. There can hardly be a stronger proof 
that women have never obtained any consider- 
able influence on the national manners of Eng- 
land, than that even during the first popularity 
of a reign distinguished for its gallantry and de- 
votion to women, the sex in general seemed to 
have gained little or nothing on the score of 
social enjoyment. The mistresses of Charles 
acquired none of the consideration which he lost 
in their society : their venality made them des- 
picable even to those who profited by it, and 
their example harmless to the rest of their sex. 
Lord Clarendon had forbidden his wife from 
visiting Lady Castlemain immediately after the 
Restoration, although her father Lord Grandison 
had been his friend. (1) Pique, at this neglect, 
was supposed to have made her active among his 
enemies at the time of his dismissal from office. 
Many families Of high rank and opulent for- 
tunes continued living exclusively in the country; 
satisfied with the advantages of their restored 
possessions, and with the amusements that their 
hounds, their horses, and their neighbours, af- 
forded. To such persons, London exhibited 



( 1) King James's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 428. 
H 2 



100 

few inducements to draw them from their digni- 
fied residences in the country ; and the me- 
tropolis and its society could derive little bril- 
liancy from their occasional presence. 

All the old comedies are filled with the com- 
plaints of women against the dulness of their 
lives. Mrs. Hutchinson says, " her husband's 
" design was to draw her into his owne country, 
" but he would not set upon it too roughly, and, 
" therefore, lett her rest awhile, when he had 
" drawne her ten miles nearer it (to Richmond), 
" out of the city, where she had her birth and 
" education, and where all her relations were 
■ most conversant, and which she could not re- 
" solve to quitt, for altogether, to betake herself 
" to the north, which was a formidable name 
" among the London ladies." (1) 

On the other hand, a, journey to London was 
considered in times subsequent to those of which 
we are now speaking as often involving in ruin, 
as well as ridicule, a country gentleman's family. 
The characters and the adventures of the Wronff- 
heads, as first written by Sir John Vanburgh, in 
1673, exhibit probably no very exaggerated pic- 
ture. The pert conceit of Miss Jenny, and the 
low pursuits of Squire Richard, were to be found 

(1) Mrs. Hutchinson's Life of Colonel Hutchinson. 



101 

in many a mansion-house, in the distant counties, 
to the very end of the 18th century ; and it may 
be doubted if the Lady Wrongheads, who be- 
lieve that by imitating the vices of their supe- 
riors they assimilate themselves to their graces, 
are yet quite extinct. 

The respectable part of the sex in general, 
even those of the highest rank, were unknown 
out of the circle of their own families and re- 
lations ; where they were occupied entirely with 
the concerns of their household, the manage- 
ment of their affairs, and the establishment of 
their daughters. This last object was, indeed, 
pursued by very different means from those 
which have been deemed expedient by the no 
less attached mothers of later days. The mar- 
riages of the young nobility were then contracted 
much in the same manner that they continued 
to be, long after, in France. The proposal was 
first made, and agreed to by the parents, before 
the parties had any opportunities of becoming 
acquainted, or making themselves agreeable to 
each other. Sometimes, as may be supposed, 
this proposal was anticipated by the sentiments 
of the young people ; and sometimes, again, as in 
France, recourse was had to royal favour and 
protection, to reconcile these sentiments to the 
interested views of prudent parents. In the 

h 3 



102 

diary of Lady Burlington, already cited, we find 
Laurence Hyde, the Chancellor Clarendon's 
second son, availing himself of the interest of 
his sister, the Duchess of York, and of his 
dawning favour with Charles the Second, to 
persuade Lady Burlington to permit his hitherto 
rejected addresses to the Lady Henrietta Boyle, 
her fifth daughter, under a promise from the 
King of especial favour and advancement. (1) 

(1) " On the 6th of March, 1664, her Highnesse ye 
" Duchesse of Yorke made me a proposall for a marriage 
" betwixt her brother Mr. Laurence Hyde, and my 
" daughter Henrietta ; and I returned her my L ds and my 
" answere ye 8 th , whereof she discourst w th her father the 
" L d Chancellor. March the 18 th , I rec d my L d Chan- 
" cellor's proposalls of what he would settle upon his son 
" Laur ce . Ye 20 th , I return'd account of it, to ye Duchesse, 
" as nott satisfactorye. 

" The 26th March being Easter day, I acquainted Mr. 
" Hyde with his father's proposalls to my L d and me, and 
" that we both thought y m verye short of our expectations, 
" of w l was most requisitt for his own and our daughter's 
" future support in a married condition ; for wh ch he y" 
" exprest a passionate greefe. 

" April the 7 th . He came to me in one of the galleries at 
" Whitehall, begging to know if y l obstacle of a fortune 
" were removed, and if made out suitable to what we 
" desired, if then he might have any hopes of admittance ; 
" to w ch I replyed, that on such termes possibly he might 
" be admitted. 

" April the 10 th . My sister Ranelaugh visitted the 
11 Chancellor, to whom he exprest his trouble at our 
" demurre. Ye 11 th . He did the same to my b r Orrerve 



103 

In cases of large fortune, and great connections, 
marriages were often contracted before the per- 
sons so disposed of could have any opinion 
or choice in the matter. Lady Arlington's only 
child, Lady Isabella Bennett, was formally mar- 
ried to the Duke of Grafton (son of Charles 
the Second by the Duchess of Cleveland) when 
she was only five, and he eight years old. 
The Archbishop of Canterbury performed the 
ceremony, and the King and all the court were 
present. This wedding must have been meant 
merely as a sort of fete, for the amusement of 
the King(l); as it was thought proper to 
re-marry them, when she was twelve, and he 



" April the 24 th . His M l y e himself verye particularly 
" recommended Mr. Hyde to my L ds acceptance, promising 
" to be verye carefull of his preferm 1 ; when upon having 
" first conjured our daughter to deale frankly w th us, and 
" trulye inform'd her everye particular of ye treatye, which 
" was onlye offer'd her in case she approved; leaving it 
" whollye to her choice, uppon her declaring her inclin- 
" ations for it, we y n admitted Mr. Hyde to make his ad- 
" dresse to her." — Lady Burlington 's Diary, Dev. MSS. 

(1) Madame de Mazarin relates a somewhat similar amuse- 
ment arranged by her uncle, the Cardinal, for the court of 
Anne of Austria, from a coarse and disgusting trick im- 
posed, by his order, on the extreme youth and innocence of 
her sister, Marie Anne Mancini, a child of eight years old, 
which could only serve to supply improper jests and allu- 
sions by way of relief to the ennui of a corrupted court. 

H 4 



104 

sixteen years old. Mr. Evelyn, who was present 
at both the meetings, tells us(l), "the cere- 
" mony was performed in my Lord Chamberlain's 
" (Lord Arlington's) lodgings at Whitehall, by 
" the Bishop of Rochester, his Majesty being 
" present. A sudden and unexpected thing, 
" when every body thought the first marriage 
" would come to nothing. But the measure 
" being determined, I was privately invited by 
" my Lady her mother to be present. I 
" confess I could give her little joy, and so 
" I plainly told her ; but she said the King 
" would have it so, and there was no going 
" back. # * * # I staid supper, where his 
" Majesty sat between the Duchess of Cleve- 
" land (mother of the Duke of Grafton) and the 
" sweet Duchess the bride : there were several 
" great persons and ladies without pomp." 

The Lady Elizabeth Percy, daughter and 
heiress of Joceline Percy, the last Earl of 
Northumberland, was contracted, when only 
twelve years old, to the Earl of Ogle, only son of 
the Duke of Newcastle, and he dying the next 
year, she was again married to Mr. Thynne, the 
same person murdered by Count Koningsmarck 
before their cohabitation. The year after she 
married Charles, the sixth Duke of Somerset, 

(1) See Evetyn's Diary, vol. i. p. 513. 



105 

and was thus twice a widow, and a third time 
married at the age of fifteeen. (1) 

These instances however were rare, and when 
we see, in the life of Mrs. Hutchinson, her 
account of her courtship and marriage, the ad- 
mirable detail she gives of her husband's senti- 
ments and conduct towards her (2), and her 
own appreciation of her happiness ; we shall ac- 
knowledge with pride, as well as pleasure, that 



(1) See, in the Memoirs of James the Second by himself, 
another proposed destination of this Lady. The Duke of 
Buckingham offering to persuade her mother, the Countess 
of Northumberland, to give her " to Harry Jermyn? Lord 
St. Alban's nephew and heir. 

(2) " Never was there a passion more ardent and lesse 
" idolatrous ; he loved her better than his life, with inex- 
" pressable tenderness and kindness ; had a most obliging 
" esteem of her ; yet still considered honour, religion, and 
" duty above her — nor ever suffered the intrusion of such 
" a dotage, as should blind him from marking her imper- 
" fections : these he looked upon with such an indulgent 
" eye, as did not abate his love and esteem for her, while it 
11 augmented his care to blot out all those spots which 
" might make her appear less worthy of that respect he 
" paid her. ***** Never man had a greater passion for 
" a woman, nor a more honourable esteem for a wife ; yet 
" he was not uxorious, nor remitted that just rule, which it 
" was her honour to obey ; but managed the reines of go- 
" vernment with such prudence and affection, that she, who 
" would not delight in such an honourable and advantageous 
" objection, must have wanted a reasonable soule." — Mrs. 
Hutchinson's Memoirs of her Husband. 



106 

domestic felicity, founded on mutual and vo- 
luntary preference, was already domiciliated in 
England. 

It might seem that the accomplishments, and 
the various modes of occupying time, universally 
taught to our young women now, would have 
been more usefully and necessarily bestowed at 
a period when the whole female sex lived so 
much more in seclusion, both from the inter- 
ruptions, and the improvement arising from 
worldly society. Certain it is, that, generally 
speaking, they possessed few of the means of 
self-amusement, now in the hands of almost all 
the world. Music was cultivated by none but 
those whose strong natural taste, and talent 
for it, made them overcome all obstacles in its 
pursuit. Drawing, or any taste for the fine 
arts, seems never to have been thought of, 
either as an employment of the hands, or as a 
cultivation of the mind ; although such a taste 
is perhaps the more peculiarly desirable for 
women, because it furnishes a source of con- 
versation free from scandal, and from all idle 
and vulgar enquiries into the affairs of others. 
No woman really possessing such a taste will 
ever be a gossip. Reading, except for some 
express purpose, was hardly esteemed an amuse- 
ment among the young men of the world, far 



107 

less among the young women. The romances 
of the day, unlike the modern furniture of a 
circulating library, were serious voluminous 
works ; whose perusal was scarcely undertaken 
except by those who had a turn for study, and 
solitary occupation in the long leisure of a 
country life. 

The divine poetry of Milton (as has been justly 
observed by a modern critic) was little celebrated, 
not from an absence of taste, but from a paucity 
of readers. Letter-writing, according to modern 
habits, was little practised for many years after 
this period. In spite, therefore, of the num- 
berless tapestry chairs, carpets, beds, and hang- 
ings, now for the most part discarded in rags 
from the garrets of their grand-daughters, 
an unsatisfied curiosity yet remains, as to the 
amusements of the younger women, whose 
fortune and rank elevated them above the 
common every-day househould cares of exist- 
ence. The private letters of the times, yet pre- 
served, for the very reasons above mentioned, 
furnish us with little information. Those that 
are not written expressly on some family busi- 
ness, evince none of the ease in composition, so 
necessary for familiar details. They all betray 
a great ignorance of the language, of its gram- 
mar, and its spelling, and often a want of 



108 

facility in the mechanical part of writing, which 
proves how little it was practised. 

The wife of the first Duke of Ormonde, 
daughter and heiress of Preston Earl of Des- 
mond, Carte tells us, in the life of her husband, 
" understood all sort of business, in which it 
" came in her way to be concerned, perfectly 
" well, and wrote upon them with great clear- 
" ness of comprehension, and strength of ex- 
" pression." Yet her guardian, Rich Earl of 
Holland, had taken so little care of her educa- 
tion, as not to have had her even taught to 
write \ " but she learnt it herself, by copying 
" after print, for which reason she never joined 
" her letters together." (1) 

The correspondence of Sacarissa, whose wit 
as well as beauty has immortalized the name of 
Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland, is ab- 
solutely deficient both in style and spelling. 
The letters lately published addressed to her 
son-in-law, the Marquis of Halifax, are evidently 
written to convey to him the news of the day, 
with a further intention of courting his approba- 
tion, and support of her son's (2) administration, 



(1) Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormonde, p. 537. fol. ed. 

(2) Robert, second Earl of Sunderland, whose time- 
serving politics ended in his disgrace at the Revolution. 



109 

who was then secretary of state. They display 
much acquaintance with, and interest in, the 
political affairs of the time, and give some 
curious particulars of society towards the end 
of the reign of Charles the Second. But still 
these particulars, and this society, are those of 
the court, and the pleasure with which she 
talks of meeting Lord Halifax at Althorpe, and 
at Rufford, seems much more connected with 
politics, than with any proposed enjoyment of 
society, or of the country. The Diary already 
quoted, of the first Countess of Burlington, who 
appears to have been a person of superior pru- 
dence, and good conduct in the affairs of life, 
and much considered and respected by all those 
connected with her, this Diary, which extends 
through the interesting period which elapsed 
from the year 1635 to 1688, is chiefly filled with 
the dates of the marriages of her daughters, the 
births of her grandchildren, the journies she un- 
dertakes to and from Ireland, and the alterations 
she was perpetually making in the settlement of 
her great property (1), and of its disposition in her 
will. Not a word of any other occupations that 
interest her, of any public events, of any amuse- 



(1) She was the only child and heiress of the last Earl 
of Cumberland, of the family of Clifford. 



110 

ments of which she partook, or of any society 
in which she lived, except short memoranda of 
the royal suppers, already quoted in a foregoing 
note, and an account of a visit from Anne Hyde 
Duchess of York, the very day before she died. 
This, from the particular circumstances in which 
it took place, and the simple detail which is 
given of them, the reader may like to see. 

« Thursday, the 30th March, I67O. 
" Her. R. H. the Duchess of York, then in a 
" very languishing state, was brought in a sedan 
" to my house, telling me she came to take her 
" leave of me, having now wholly laid aside all 
" thoughts of this world, and fixed them on a 
" better. She was carried into a green walk in 
" my garden, and walked some steps herself) but 
" growing faint, returned into her sedan, and 
" was carried into the terrace walk, where she 
" fixedly looked upon Clarendon garden (1) and 
<c was then brought upp into my chamber, and 
" laid to rest uppon the bed for the space of an 
" hour, where she could not sleep, but oft dis- 
" coursed to my Lord, to Mr. Jermyn, and us 
" about her, of her willingness to die, and that in 



(1) Clarendon house and garden were on the site of 
Grafton Street. 



Ill 

" the most significant expressions, and then got 
" upp, and did eat more heartily than she had 
" done, for some time afore. As soon as she 
" had eaten, the Duke (of York) came in, and 
" after a little space trying to rest herself, they 
" went back to St. James's, where her great 
" pains more and more seized her, yett as long 
" as she could speak she appeared most sensible, 
" and afterwards lay quiet, as if she were asleep, 
" without any struggling, incident to the pangs 
" of death, wheroffe I was a witness, and soe 
" she continued till she departed this life, be- 
" twixt two and three in the afternoon, on Fri- 
" day the last of March." 

Even Lady Russell, whose letters and whose 
conduct prove every superior endowment, both 
of heart and understanding, was deficient in those 
common acquirements, now professed by all her 
country-women, although they must still look up 
to her exalted character, as the yet unrivalled 
ornament of their sex and nation. 

The learned habits of the age of Elizabeth, 
had been first acquired by the Reformation, 
which, putting the Scriptures into the hands of 
the public, had excited a spirit of enquiry possess- 
ing the charm of novelty, as well as the merit of su- 
perior and more informed piety. This disposition 
to study, which had produced some good female 



112 

scholars (now hardly known but in the dull 
pages of " Ballard's learned Ladies,") was 
already almost worn out in retirement, by a 
studious few, without having communicated 
any taste or emulation to the sex in general for 
mental acquirements. Those who had attained 
them, instead of becoming more agreeable or 
more intelligent members of society, were in 
general so estranged from the world and its 
ways, and from the duties of their sex and 
situation, that their example was little likely to 
be followed by others, whose more natural dis- 
positions inclined them to please, and to live 
like the rest of the world. 

The all-occupying devotion of Lettice Lady 
Falkland was as little likely to make piety popu- 
lar, as the fantastic and voluminous works of 
the fantastic Duchess of Newcastle, were to 
encourage the rational cultivation of the mind. 

The biographer of Lady Falkland tells us, that 
" she first spent some hours every day in her pri- 
" vate devotions ; these were called by those of 
" her family her busie hours. * * * * Then her 
" maids came into her chamber early every 
" morning, and ordinarily she passed about an 
" hour with them, in praying, catechising and in- 
" structing them. To these secret and private 
" prayers, the public Morning and Evening 



113 

" Prayer of the Church, before dinner and 
" supper, and another forme, together with read- 
" ing scriptures and singing psalms, before bed- 
" time, were daily and constantly added." (1) 

The Duchess of Newcastle tells us in the pre- 
fatory address to her husband, prefixed to her ac- 
count of his life, that "it pleased God to command 
" his servant Nature to indue me with a poetical 
" and philosophical genius, even from my birth, 
" for I did write some books in that kind before 
" I was twelve years of age, which, for want of 
" good method and order, I would never di- 
" vulge." She goes on to tell us, that she after- 
wards applied "to the reading of philosophical 
" authors, on purpose to have those names and 
" words of art that are used in schools," and that 
after these her studies, her "readers did wonder, 
" and thought it impossible that a woman could 
" have so much learning and understanding, in 
" terms of art and scholastical expressions." 

The Restoration and its consequences cer- 
tainly did not favour serious studies; and however 
a certain taste for literature and for its cultivation 
became fashionable among men, among the 



(1) " The Holy Life and Death of the Lady Lettice 
" Viscountess Falkland, by John Duncan Parson (seques- 
" tered), London, 1653. 



114 

other sex it was never even thought of as an 
accomplishment. From this time till towards 
the middle of the ensuing century, we find the 
education of women so narrowed in its principles 
and neglected in its details, that ignorance, pre- 
judice, and idleness of mind became inevitable. 
Early in the reign of Queen Anne (her own 
character an example of the ill effects of such 
an education) the sex was coarsely reproached 
and satirised for their ignorance by a man (I) 
whose base and cruel conduct in his intimate 
relations with women, as little authorized him to 
be their critic, as his mean and prejudiced 
opinions to be their adviser. 

The long disuse of all theatrical entertain- 
ments, and afterwards the profligacy of the 
restored theatre, had made it little frequented 
by the more sober part of the community. 
When a mask was recurred to by the female 
sex to spare blushes, which in any unsought 
situation they knew so well became them, we 
may be assured how little the theatre could 
have been frequented by respectable women. 
Masks of black velvet, or vizors, as they were 
then called, had at first been resorted to by 
those only who, in spite of an admiration for 

(l) Swift. 



115 



the theatre, felt ashamed of the language and 
manners it presented to them. (1) But the mask 
soon (as may be supposed) became a passport to 
others, who had nothing to lose on the score of 
manners. (2) A fashion subject to such abuse 
was entirely left off by the better order of wo- 
men, long before the language of the stage, or 
the structure of the pieces represented, were 
such as could have been listened to with an 
unblushing front by those possessing the im- 
proved manners and purified diction of the 
present times. The revolution which so season- 
ably took place in the political sentiments and 
government of the country, by no means ex- 
tended to the theatre ; and we observe with 
surprise some of our most exceptionable comedies 



(1) " The fair sat panting at a courtier's play, 
And not a mask went unimproved away.*' 

Pope's Essay on Criticism, vol. iii. p. 120. 

(2) Colley Cibber, speaking of the indecent liberties 
which dramatic writers took with their wit, says, " I 
" remember the ladies were then observed to be decently 
" afraid of venturing to a new comedy, until they were 
(t assured they might do it without any risk of an insult to 
" their modesty ; or if their curiosity was too strong for their 
" patience, they took care at least to save appearances, and 
" rarely came the first night but in masks, then daily 
" worn, and admitted into the pit and the side boxes and 
" gallery." — Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber. 

I 2 



116 

in point of morality and decency, both of sen- 
timents and language, brought forward during 
the reign of the austere William, and even 
during the life of his queen, upheld as a model 
of piety and conjugal virtues. Congreve's Old 
Bachelor appeared in 1693 ; Vanburgh's Relapse 
in 1697» an d his Provoked Wife the next year. 
The first has long ceased to be acted at all ; 
and of the other two, the one had changed its 
name, and a great part of the arrangement of 
the plot, and the other much of its very ex- 
ceptionable dialogue, before their admirable wit, 
and true comic gaiety, could be presented for 
the entertainment of a more refined, if not a 
more moral age. 

The 'horror of the sectaries for cards, and all 
games of chance, had universally discredited 
them throughout the country, and even pre- 
vented their general adoption among the re- 
publican troops in their intervals of inaction. 
In France, on the contrary, habits of gaming 
had been extended, and confirmed, during the 
irregularities of the Fronde. (1) These habits 

(1) Madame de Sevigne says, December 1678 — " Pourre- 
" venir alaBassette, e'est une chose qu'on ne se peut repre- 
" senter. On y perd bien cent mille pistoles en un soir. — Le 
" Roi paroit fache de ces exces. Monsr. a mis toutes ses 
" pierreries en gage." — Lettres de Sevigne, torn. v. p. 3S4. 



117 

accompanied the exiled royalists on their return 
to England, but were still chiefly confined to 
the precincts of the Court, and indeed formed 
one of the principal attractions of its society. 
Count Hamilton, with his usual talent of couch- 
ing satiric truth under the witty expression of 
apparent admiration, sufficiently informs us of 
the motive of his hero, the Comte de Grammont, 
for endeavouring to assist the Duchess of Cleve- 
land in extorting some pecuniary advantages 
from the King. Her counsellor made one of 
her party at Bassette every night ; and his good 
luck at play allowed him to anticipate the share 
he should have in her increased revenue. The 
name of this game, and of its rival Ombre (1), 
indicate their foreign origin. To the Duchess 
of Cleveland's assemblies, for the express pur- 
pose of play, succeeded in chronological order 
those of the Duchess of Portsmouth, and of 
Madame de Mazarin, then resident in London. 
The Duchess of Cleveland had gone to Paris 
about the year I672 or I67S, when the duchess 
of Portsmouth was installed in magnificent 
apartments within the limits of Whitehall Palace. 
Evelyn in his Diary more than once mentions 



(1) The derivation of Ombre, is from the Spanish Hombre 
a tres, the man among three. 

I 8 



118 



their costly furniture. He says in 1683, that 
they had been two or three times pulled down 
" and rebuilt to satisfy her prodigal and expensive 
" pleasures ; whilst her majestie's does not ex- 
" ceed some gentlemen's ladies in furniture and 
" accommodation. Here I saw the new fabric 
" of French tapestry, for design, tenderness of 
" work, and incomparable imitation of the best 
" paintings, beyond any thing I had ever be- 
" held. ***** Then for Japan cabinets, 
" screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought 
" plate, tables, stands, chimney furniture, sconces, 
" branches, braseras, &c. all of massive silver, 
" and out of number, besides some of his Ma- 
" jestie's best paintings." 

Madame de Mazarin was likewise lodged 
within the precincts of Whitehall. The works 
of St. Evremond, her friend and contem- 
porary in England, are full of lively remon- 
strances against her constant occupation at play. 
In these we learn the names of most of her 
English associates at Bassette. Among them 
we find La belle Middleto?i, of the Memoires de 
Grammont. In the verses which he calls Scene 
de Bassette, he gives us a perfect idea of the 
language and manners of his dramatis persona? ; 
of the violence and impatience of Madame de 
Mazarin with all her associates when she lost, 



119 

and of the tone of Mrs. Middleton's convers- 
ation, which is that of a silly beauty, eager to 
know the opinion of others on the comparative 
charms of her rivals. The whole is given in the 
lively dramatic style of St. Evremond, and marks 
the phrases peculiar to the diction of his per- 
sonages, although in a language w 7 hich was not 
his own. Madame de Mazarin, impatient at the 
ill luck she had shared with Mrs. Middleton, is 
angry at the English instead of French that she 
hears talking about her. 

MADAME DE MAZARIN. 

Votre demangeaison de parler est terrible, 
Et gagner avec vous, n'est pas chose possible. 

MRS. MIDDLETON. 

Je ne puis dire un mot, sans la mettre en courroux : -■ 
O Lord ! Mr. Villiers — O Lord ! que ferons nous ? 
Dites-nous qui des deux vous semble la plus belle, 
De Mesdames Grafton et Litchfield — laquelle? 

MR. VILLIERS. 

Commencez ; dites-nous, Madame Middleton, 
Votre vrai sentiment sur Madame Grafton. (1) 

MRS. MIDDLETON. 

De deux doigts seulement faites-la moi plus grande, 
II faut qu'a sa beaute* toute beaute se rende. 

MR. VILLIERS. 

L'autre n'a pas besoin de cette faveur-la. 



(1) Lady Isabella Bennet, the same whose early marriage 
is recorded in the foregoing pages. 

I 4. 



120 

MRS. MIDDLETON. 

Elle est grande, elle est droite. 

MR. VILLIERS. 



Apres cela. 



MRS. MIDDLETON. 

Madame Litchfield un peu plus anim£e, 

De tout ceux qu'elle voit, se verroit fort aimee. 

MR. VILLIERS. 

Vous ne me parlez pas de Madame Kildare. 

MRS. MIDDLETON. 

/ never saxv personne avoir un meilleur air. 

MR. VILLIERS. 

Votre Mistress Masson, autrefois si pronee, 
Me semble maintenant assez abandonnee ; 
Je ne vous entends plus parler de ses appas? 

MRS. MIDDLETON. 

Monsieur Villiers, indeed, elle n'en manque pas ; 

Je ne l'ai jamais crue une beaute parfaite. 

Mais allons voir un peu, comment va la Bassette. 

MADAME DE MAZARIN. 

Vos beaux discours d'appas, de grace, de beaute, 
Nous coutent notre argent ; il ne m'est rien reste. 
Cherchez d'autres moities, ( 1 ) comme d'autres oreilles, 
Pour petarder 1' Anglois surtoutes vos merveilles. 
Et vous, Mr. Villiers, garder pour d'autres gens, 
Dlwnneur et de raison, vos rares sentimens. 

MRS. MIDDLETON. 

Je ne vous croyois pas tout-a-fait si colere ; 

Un discours de beaute, ne doit pas vous deplaire. 

Qui, tant que vous, Madame, a de part aux attraits? 

MADAME DE MAZARIN. 

Si je le crois, du moins, je n'en parle jamais. 
(1) Going halves at play. 



121 



MRS. MIDDLETON. 

Nous n'avons pas appris a garder le silence, 
Comme vous avez fait en vos couvens de France. 
Monsieur, Monsieur Villiers, allons nous consoler ; 
II est d'autres maisons, ou Ton pourra parler. 

MADAME DE MAZARIN. 

Enseignez-moi, Madame, enseignez-moi l'ecole, 
Ou je pourrois apprendre a, discourir sur rien. 
Et passer sans sujet, de parole en parole, 
A ce merite use, d'un aimable entretien. (1) 

These assemblies, and the entertainments 
given by the royal family, where play always 
formed- a part of the amusement, seem for 
many years after the Restoration to have been 
the chief resource in polished society of those 
persons, who from taste, habits of life, or long 
residence abroad, found the indigenous pleasures 
of cock-fighting, bowling, and horse-racing in- 
sufficient for their amusement, and the drinking 
then inseparable from them incompatible with 
their health. Thus during the whole reign of 
Charles the Second, we find all those who had 
adopted play as an amusement, living much in 
the society of the many foreigners who now 
visited or were domiciliated in London. The 
talliers at Bassette were almost always foreign- 
ers, and few or none of those who made gaming 
their profession or their means of living were 
English. 

(1) See St. Evremond, vol. v. p. 92. 



122 



Great sums were already lost and won in 
these societies. Lady Sunderland mentions more 
than once the ill luck of Lord Cavendish (1) 
at Madame de Mazarin's, and the high play 
which took place at Court, in her letters to Lord 
Halifax. 

" My Lord Cavendish had taken up mony at 
" fiftye and threescore pounde in a hundred, to 
" go into France, and he lost a thousand in 
" tow nights at Madam Mazarins, that stops 
" his journey for a time. ***** My Lord 
" Thanet is one of the pretenders to be Cham- 
" berlaine to the Queen, and makes his court 
" in sitting on of the bed chamber women 
" playing his money with her Ma t,c at Anter- 
" lew (2) : — the King, Queene, Duchesse of 
" Portsmouth and my L d Feathersham made a 
" banke of 2000/., and they won 2700/. of the 
" Frenchmen. " 

August 20th, 1680. 

" My Lord Cavendish's journey is stop'd awhile; 
" he has not only lost all his mony, but coach- 
" horses and plate, all he had : my L d Clifford 
" says, he expects his pictures and house will 
" be gone next." 

From this society, which of course must have 
been very limited in its numbers, cards, under 

(1) The first Duke of Devonshire. (2) Loo. 



123 



the modified and more sober forms of Ombre 
and Quadrille, became by degrees the amuse- 
ment of women of all ranks in their social 
meetings, and one which their neglected educa- 
tion, and their want of general subjects of 
conversation, made necessary. Still we can 
form no very lively idea of the private life of 
the respectable part of the community at this 
period. The gay but profligate pages of Comte 
Hamilton describe nothing but Whitehall. 

Were we disposed to adopt the representation 
given of the manners and the morals of the 
city in the comedies of the day, we should 
have an equally bad opinion of both ; but for- 
tunately we know that the vices and follies of 
the upper orders of society, in a great metro- 
polis, have no extensive influence on the mass 
of the population of their fellow- citizens, far 
less on that of their country at large ; that such 
excesses, 

" To men remote from power but rarely known, 
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all their own." 

Goldsmith's Traveller. 

Even in those disastrous periods which crowd 
the pages of history with the recital of tumult, 
war, revolution, and all the horrors in their 
train ; while private memoirs teem with fright- 



124 

fill instances of individual depravity and suffer- 
ing, thousands of inoffensive beings, whose 
situation no modes of society can much affect, 
nor any political events habitually benefit, are 
struggling to pursue their usual course of 
necessary labour and industry, in spite of the 
moral storms around them. These moral storms, 
like the great commotions of nature, end by 
falling as heavily on the cottage as on the palace : 
rinding in the cottage less to destroy, the work 
of mischief soon attacks such necessary and vital 
means of subsistence, that the poorest peasant 
in the land is obliged to abandon his labour, 
and lend his arm to support pretensions by 
which he can never profit, and confirm power 
in which he will never participate. It is the 
more or less fixity and inaptness to excitement 
in this order of people, which will be found to 
be the measure of the more or less evil occa- 
sioned by such tempestuous periods in the civil 
history of man. 

A striking instance will hereafter occur in 
comparing the conduct of the population of 
London, even under the strong influence of 
religious fanaticism, with that of Paris, during 
the first twelve years of the French Revolution. 



\<25 



CHAPTER III. 

FRENCH MEMOIRS AND PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE, 

THEIR ADVANTAGES OVER OUR EARLY CHRONICLES. 

STATE OF SOCIETY IN FRANCE DURING THE REGENCY 
OF ANNE OF AUSTRIA. — CHARACTER OF HER COURT. 

MADAME DE CHEVREUSE. — MADEMOISELLE DE 

HAUTEFORT. MADEMOISELLE DE LA FAYETTE. 

CARDINAL MAZARIN. CONTRAST BETWEEN THE MO- 
TIVES AND CONDUCT OF THE CONTEMPORARY CIVIL 

WARS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. THE FRONDE, AND 

ITS EFFECTS ON THE SOCIAL LIFE AND MANNERS OF 
FRANCE. THE DUCHESSE DE LONGUEVILLE. 

In examining the state of society in France, we 
have much to assist our enquiries, which is abso- 
lutely wanting to similar researches in our own 
country. At a period long anterior to that of 
which we are speaking, the French already pos- 
sessed a series of biographical history written by 
individuals who, while relating the public events 
in which they were themselves actors or spec- 
tators, dwell often with much detail and com- 
placency on their own particular history and 
adventures. The earliest French memoirs 
possess this essential advantage over our old 
chronicles, that in the latter, the author is never 
produced, and consequently his narrative loses 



l c 26 

all the liveliness of individual recital, and much 
of the identification which takes place between 
an eye-witness and his auditor. So entirely 
indeed do time and distance hallow and render 
interesting minute details, that, after a certain 
period, history becomes more or less valuable, as 
it presents more or less lively pictures, not only 
of events, but of their effects on the minds and 
manners of contemporaries. It is this principle 
of curiosity inherent in our nature, which has in 
all times given such peculiar value to private 
letters. It is this which makes those of Cicero 
to Atticus the most interesting, and, perhaps, 
the most curious book which has come down to 
us from antiquity. How much more valuable, 
how infinitely more instructive, would have been 
the commentary of Caesar on his conquests, had 
his comprehensive mind entered into more fre- 
quent details respecting himself and respecting 
the nations desolated by his arms, or had 
any of his letters explanatory of his own views, 
conduct, or feelings been preserved to us ! 
Had he not abstained from every thing but 
a mere detail of his warfare and its results, 
we should have long ago estimated more 
highly and more justly the vast advances that 
have since been made under the mild system of 
Christianity, not only in political knowledge, but 
in every thing that regards the general interests 



12? 

of humanity. We should have been more for- 
cibly struck with seeing one of the most power- 
ful intellects that ever adorned human nature 
so enslaved by the ignorance and the prejudices 
of his age, that his wars were those of extermin- 
ation, and that even his splendid abilities, un- 
assisted by a purer and more intellectual system 
of moral truth, allowed him not to imagine a 
better use of conquest than to destroy. 

The French possess several collections of letters 
which form valuable and interesting commenta- 
ries on the general histories and the individual 
memoirs of the same date. The studied phrases, 
forced compliments, and long-winded circum- 
locutions of Voiture and of Mademoiselle Scu- 
deri, no less than the incomparable ease and 
natural wit of Madame de Sevigne, convey 
much to the accurate observer of human nature 
and of the world, which their writers never 
intended to communicate. The same may be 
observed of many of the memoirs of those times. 
The accuracy of their statement of facts, al- 
though by no means to be depended on when 
relating their own history, may be safely trusted 
when accidentally mentioning circumstances un- 
connected either with their interest, their fame, 
or their vanity. 

Thus, when Gourville tells us, that the Mare- 



128 



chal d'Humieres, at the siege of Arras in 1654, 
was the first person who in actual warfare was 
served on plate, " et qui s'etoit a vise de donner 
de 1' entremets, et un fruit regulier ; M and that 
Turenne, while commanding in chief at the same 
siege, " n'avoit que de la vaisselle de fer-blanc, 
" avec une grande table servie de toutes sortes 
" de grosses viandes en grande abondance (1) ;" 
we cannot doubt the immense strides made by 
luxury in the expences of an army and of a 
military life, between the time above mentioned, 
and the command of Marechal d'Estres in 1710, 
when we learn from Grimm, who was one of 
the twenty -eight private secretaries accompany- 
ing head-quarters, that when the heavy baggage 
of the army was left behind, " he necessairc 
«' le plus indispensable " took three hours to 
defile at every march. (2) 

In fact, the whole tone of society in France, 
anterior to the majority of Louis the Fourteenth 
(as has been before observed), more resembled 
the times that preceded than those that fol- 
lowed it. 



(1) " II y avoit plus de vingt officiers a cette table, et 
quelques autres petites tables servies de jambons, de 
langues de boeuf, de cervelats, et du vin en quantite." — 
Memoires de GourviUe, torn. i. p. 155. 

(2) Lettres de Madame d'Epinay, torn. iii. p. 13. 



1^9 

The sombre jealousy of Louis the Thirteenth, 
the romantic gallantries of Anne of Austria, 
the fashion of single combats, the journey of 
Louis the Fourteenth to the frontiers of Spain 
to meet his intended bride, and the formalities 
of his marriage, — all bear the character of the 
antecedent age much more than that of the 
same country at the end of his reign. 

On the accession of Anne of Austria to the 
regency, her weak but decent character, the 
regularity of her life, her exactness in the per- 
formance of all her religious duties, and in the 
observance of all the decorums of her " high 
office," maintained in her court the appearance 
of much order, dignity, and regularity of con- 
duct. 

The Duchess de Chevreuse, the friend and 
favourite of her early youth, who had shared 
her unmerited sufferings, when recalled on the 
death of Louis the Thirteenth from the banish- 
ment in which the vindictive Richelieu had de- 
tained her, found no longer in the Queen the 
same similarity of tastes, pursuits, or amuse- 
ments, which had involved them in the same 
suspicions, and united them in the same per- 
secution. 

The sovereign was become more serious and 
more devout, while the favourite had retained 

K 



130 

the same love of admiration and intrigue which 
had served to amuse her exile, and by which 
she hoped again to secure her empire over the 
Queen. But the Queen, like all weak characters 
in possession of power, dreading the idea of being 
governed or directed by others, shook off her 
old favourite, and after a short time neglected 
all those who from their support during her 
adversity considered themselves as having pe- 
culiar rights to her favour. These claims they 
were not backward in asserting, while she, by 
way of securing her independence, threw herself 
entirely into the power of Cardinal Mazarin, 
like Gribouille who, according to the proverb, 
" se jettoit dans Peau, de peur de la pluie." 

Of Mazarin's first introduction to Richelieu, 
of the beginning of his favour with that minister, 
and of his rise to power in France, a learned 
friend of the author's, at Rome, lately found in 
that city a detailed MS. account nearly con- 
temporary with the transaction. It differs little 
from that given by Le Vassor, in his history of 
Louis the Thirteenth, except in not mentioning 
that Mazarin was sent by the papal government as 
the conciliatory messenger to Paris. The Pope, 
afterwards (according to Le Vassor), seems to 
have been very unwilling to make him a car- 
dinal, probably from thinking him too much 



131 

attached to the interests of France. In the year 
1640, during the pontificate of Urban the Eighth 
(Barberini), a positive prohibition of all public 
gaming in Rome had been issued by the govern- 
ment, and complied with, even within the pre- 
cincts of the habitations of the foreign ministers. 
An unwarrantable contempt of this prohibition 
obliged the papal government to condemn to 
the gallies a certain Bianconi (a subject of the 
Pope), who, under the immediate protection of 
the Marechal d'Estrees, then the French ambas- 
sador, continued to hold a public rendezvous 
for games of hazard, which had before been held 
by M. Rouvray, the ambassador's chevalier 
d'honneur, or secretary. (1) 

Bianconi, having been seized in open contra- 
vention of the law, was imprisoned, tried, and 
condemned for ten years to the gallies. On 
his way to embarkation, when already attached 
to the chain of delinquents, he was forcibly re- 
leased by this secretary of the ambassador, 
assisted by others of his servants, carried off in 
public defiance of justice, and conveyed away to 
Naples. Not content with this affront, com- 
mitted by his own servants, to the court and 



(1) This circumstance is mentioned in the notes to 
Dangeau's Memoirs, but without any reference to Mazarin. 

K 2 



132 

country to which he was accredited, the ambas- 
sador never went out on any public occasion 
without this obnoxious secretary in his carriage, 
or by his side, and would not consent to his 
withdrawing himself from Rome, which the un- 
fortunate individual was anxious to have done, 
aware of the predicament in which he stood, 
aware that he had been condemned by contu- 
macy, and a price put on his head. This con- 
duct of the ambassador so incensed Cardinal 
Francesco Barberini, the Pope's nephew, and 
secretary of state, that, by his order, the offending 
person received the contents of four carbines in 
his body, while he was himself in the act of 
shooting, at a villa of the ambassador's, near 
Rome. A formal recognition took place, of the 
person of the delinquent, by the officers of jus- 
tice ; and the body was delivered to the public 
executioner, who, after cutting off the head at 
the Ponte St. Angelo, where all capital punish- 
ments were performed, presented it three times 
to the surrounding multitude, as that of the con- 
demned secretary of the French ambassador ; 
thus openly bidding defiance to any claim of 
diplomatic immunities securing from the punish- 
ment of offences committed within the jurisdic- 
tion of the papal government. As soon as these 
circumstances were known at Paris, the Marechal 



133 

d'Estrees received an order immediately to quit 
Rome, Louis the Thirteenth and Richelieu 
threatened, and the Pope and his nephew trem- 
bled. An extraordinary nuncio was immediately 
directed to repair to Paris, to detail the flagrant 
conduct both of the ambassador and his secretary, 
and to justify the extremities to which it had 
led. Mazarin, hardly twenty years old, while 
yet prosecuting the study of the law, at the 
university of Alcala, had already made himself 
remarkable, by a successful defence of his father, 
then under trial for a homicide at Rome. On 
this occasion he had hurried from Spain to his 
assistance, and had left an impression of such 
ability, and such talents, in the whole conduct of 
this affair, as seemed peculiarly to recommend 
his being chosen for the conciliatory messenger 
to Paris. Here his agreeable manners, and 
supple, accommodating character, so ingratiated 
him with the despot Richelieu, and his sombre 
melancholy master, that he succeeded completely 
in the object of his mission, and justified the 
Pope's conduct, in support of his own offended 
laws. The French ambassador was ordered to 
return to his functions at Rome, and no farther 
notice to be taken of the business. Mazarin, 
meanwhile, had so recommended himself to the 
favour of Cardinal Richelieu, that he secured for 

k 3 



134 

him the nomination of France for a cardinal's hat 
the following year, 1641, and within two years 
after (1) he succeeded to the power of his pro- 
tector, over the sickly and subdued mind of 
Louis the Thirteenth. 

The confusion and bustle of the Fronde seem 
to have introduced great licence in the man- 
ners and morals of the upper order of society in 
France, into the conduct of the women, and into 
the general tone of social life. Madame de Motte- 
ville, indeed, already complains, in 1646, while all 
was yet quiet, of the altered manners of the young 
men, — that they could not bear the politeness 
and civility of the old Marechal de Bassompierre, 
the fine gentleman of the court of Henry the 
Fourth, and censured as a crime his professed 
desire of pleasing, and his love of showy mag- 
nificence. He, who had been the admired of 
a court, where attention and respect to women 



(1) Le Vassor gives this as a reason for Richelieu's 
determination to make Mazarin a cardinal. He says, " Le 
" Cardinal n'osant se promettre une longue vie, projettat 
" d'avoir pour successeur dans le ministere un etranger 
" qu'une juste reconnoissance obligeroit a soutenir la maison 
" et les creatures de son bienfaiteur, et qui s'y preteroit 
" d'autant plus volontiers, qu'il n'auroit ni parens ni re- 
" lations dans le royaume." — Le Vassor, Histoire de Louis 
Ti-eize, torn. ix. p. 183. 



135 

was general, continued the same manners in a 
court, where, on the contrary, the men were 
almost ashamed of shewing them any civility, 
and where unbounded ambition and avarice 
were the only striking qualities of the most dis- 
tinguished persons of the day. (1) Bassompierre's 
attentions to women had certainly, by his own 
account, been very successful. When Mary of 
Medicis was arrested by order of her son, Louis 
the Thirteenth, at Compeigne, February, 1631, 
Bassompierre expected to be immediately im- 
prisoned on the return of the King to Paris. 
On this occasion he tells us in his Memoirs, 
" Le lendemain, Lundi, 24 Fevrier, je me levay 
" devant le jour, et brulay plus de six milles 
" lettres d'amoar que j'avois autrefois receues de 
" diverses femmes, apprehendant que si on me 
" prenoit prisonnier, on me vinct chercher dans 
" ma maison, et qu'on y trouvait quelque chose 
" qui pust nuire, etant les seuls papiers que 
"j'avois qui eussent pu nuire a quelqu'un." 
Journal de ma Vie, vol. ii. p. 650. 



(1) See M. de Motteville, vol. i. p. 386. St. Evremond 
gives a very different account of these times in his 
" Stances sur les premieres Annees de la Regence" ad- 
dressed to Ninon de l'Enclos. See St. Evremond, tom.iii. 
p. 145. 

K 4 



136 

The war of the Fronde, and its consequences, 
procured for the women, if not the respect of 
the men, at least a more than wholesome influ- 
ence on their affairs, and appears to have operated 
very materially on their future social relations. 
After the restoration of tranquillity by the estab- 
lishment of Cardinal Mazarin in undisputed 
power, his artful, unprincipled character was 
systematically indulgent to all pretensions, all 
malversations, and all misconduct which did 
not interfere with his own. The perfect indif- 
ference he manifested to virtue and vice, and the 
baseness of which he set the example both to 
his enemies and friends, did more, during his long 
administration, to lower the tone of national 
feeling in France than had ever been effected 
by all the imprisonments, exiles, and executions 
of the despotic and implacable Richelieu. 

From this time we hear no more of romantic 
amours like those of Louis the Thirteenth and 
Mademoiselle de la Fayette, who took a bond of 
security in the veil against her own possible 
frailty, and against the passion and scruples of 
her royal lover. The melancholy and subdued 
mind of Louis the Thirteenth had found in 
Mademoiselle de la Fayette a faithful, tender, 
and attached friend, — the only one to whom he 
dared confide his sufferings from the thraldom 



137 

in which he allowed himself to be held by Riche- 
lieu. This despotic minister, who had contrived 
to make his sovereign the first of his slaves, 
allowed nobody to approach him, but such as he 
had engaged to report to him every complaint 
made by the King against himself, while he 
practised on the King's weakness, so as to induce 
him often to betray the language of those to 
whom he had opened himself. But Mademoiselle 
de la Fayette not only boldly refused all commu- 
nication with the Cardinal, but in her frequent 
interviews with the King encouraged his aver- 
sion to his tyrant minister, and exhorted him to 
shake off an authority which dishonoured him in 
the eyes of his people. Secure in the purity of 
her conduct, of her sentiments, and of her inten- 
tions, Mademoiselle de la Fayette openly avowed 
her attachment to the King, and even a cen- 
sorious court believed it compatible with her 
honour. It is said that Cardinal Richelieu, dread- 
ing the increasing influence of a character on 
which he could gain nothing, addressed himself 
to her confessor and to the confessor of the King, 
to inspire their penitents mutually with scruples 
respecting their intercourse. Mademoiselle de 
la Fayette, it would seem, had always intended 
ending her life in a convent, and her resolution 
was hurried by her royal lover, w 7 ho, aware of 



138 



this intention, and dreading thus to lose her, at 
]ast, in spite of all her scruples and all his own, 
pressed her to accept of an establishment at 
Versailles, and to attach herself entirely to him in 
a more earthly manner. Her severe principles 
were startled at this dereliction of the King's. 
It proved to her, that she herself might not 
always resist, and hastened her resolution to 
quit the court (where she belonged to the 
Queen's household), and retire to a convent. 
To this measure the King's consent seems to 
have been obtained, merely from the religious 
scruple of not daring to dispute so pure a soul 
with heaven. After a long conversation with 
her at the Queen's drawing-room, he publicly 
shed tears at taking leave of her ; and although 
she is reported on this occasion to have allowed 
no alteration to take place in her countenance, 
the merit of her sacrifice was not lessened by 
insensibility. For when, retired to her own apart- 
ments, she flew to her windows to watch (for 
the last time) the King stepping into his car- 
riage, and exclaimed, " Helas, done ! je ne le 
" verrai plus :" she proved, that not coldness, 
but the religion of those days, and the strong 
hold it took on virtuous as well as weak minds, 
alone parted them. The long visits the King 
continued to make to her convent in a distant 



139 

quarter of Paris (1) shewed his unaltered senti- 
ments. It was, to these visits, and the advice 
he received at them, that his more kind treat- 
ment of Anne of Austria, and their living on 
better terms, is attributed. 

From Mademoiselle d'Hautefort, another of the 
Queen's ladies to whom he had before marked 
his admiration, he had experienced nothing but 
slights. He even suspected her of communi- 
cating his addresses to the Queen, and making 
light of them. She is described as handsome, 
gay, and captivating, with rigid principles, deter- 
mined opinions, little tenderness of nature, and 
much disposition to satire. Even for such a 
mistress, who rejected his homage, he had con- 
scientious scruples as to the nature of his senti- 
ments, though his want of resolution allowed 
her to remain at court. To the Queen she 
became a steady, disinterested, unshaken friend, 
who risked her life, and suffered exile in de- 
fending her from the vindictive jealousy of 
Richelieu. One of the first acts of the Queen's 
government was recalling to her court all those 
who had been banished for their attachment to her 
interests. To Mademoiselle d'Hautefort she sent 
her own litter (a conveyance we should not now 

(1) Les filles cle Sainte Marie de la Rue St. Antoine. 



140 



resort to for speed), and wrote to her to hurry 
her return in the tenderest and most flattering 
manner, assuring her that she could enjoy no 
real happiness till shared with her. Yet too 
soon afterwards this faithful friend incurred 
honourable disgrace for having endeavoured, 
with all the frankness and sincerity of real at- 
tachment in a strong mind, to open the Queen's 
eyes to the evils impending on her dawning 
reign from the undue authority she was allowing 
a false and artful minister to derive from her. 

But Anne of Austria was not exempted from 
the sad necessity which has always outlawed 
princes from the common benefits of friendship. 
She, therefore, banished her incorruptible attend- 
ant (1), and armed her minister with the power, 
as well as the will, to allow no such independent 
minds to approach her intimacy in future. 

Although Richelieu had succeeded by con- 
fiscation, by purchase, per fas et nefas, to 
emancipate the crown from the tyranny of some 



(1) See Madame de Motteville, vol. i. p. 203. 

Mademoiselle d'Hautefort afterwards married the Mare- 
chal Due de Schomberg (a Protestant), and was the mother 
of the Duke of Schomberg, killed at the battle of the 
Boyne. She had a sister called Mademoiselle d'Escars, 
Avho died unmarried in the year 1706, at the extraordinary 
age of 102 years. 



141 

of its most troublesome vassals, still the govern- 
ment-in-chief of provinces, and the great military 
commands, gave a power and an authority to 
their possessors very incompatible with that 
anomaly in human reason — an absolute mo- 
narchy : — the Prince de Conde, governor-in- 
chief of the provinces of Guyenne and of Brit- 
tany, the Due de Longueville, hereditary con- 
stable and governor of Normandy, the Duchess 
d'Aiguillon retaining the fortress of Havre de 
Grace, left her by her uncle Cardinal Richelieu, 
and many other similar endowments ; — all be- 
came points of re-union and of security against 
the orders or the displeasure of the court, which 
rendered their possessors, in fact, very indepen- 
dent of it. But this security and independence 
was merely personal, unparticipated by any body 
of people, or any order of the state. On the in- 
dividuals armed with this delegated authority it 
only conferred the right of inflicting everything 
allowed in the hierarchy of power more imme- 
diately on those committed to their government. 

The difference of national character is perhaps 
nowhere more strongly marked than in the mo- 
tives and conduct of the contemporary civil 
wars of France and England. The Fronde was 
directed entirely against individual character, — - 



142 

our Rebellion against principles of government. 
Both may be said to have failed in their object, 
the one by the establishment in power of Car- 
dinal Mazarin, the other by the Restoration of 
Charles the Second. But the war against prin- 
ciples had served to develope the human mind, 
and to throw light on the real end and only 
true means of government. The war against 
individual character had debased the mind, and 
given expansion, only, to private pique and 
hatred. It took away all dignity of motive, and 
all shame of abandoning or supporting leaders, 
except as they rose or fell with the wheel of 
fortune. The parliament of Paris, after having 
put a price on the head of Mazarin in 1653, 
publicly harangued him as the saviour of the 
state in 1660, without any other change in cir- 
cumstances than his having established his au- 
thority. By this conduct they lost the power 
ever to do more than make useless remonstrances 
against measures, which they had neither the 
right to oppose, nor the virtue to control. 

But the parliament of England, which had 
defended five of its members from the King 
himself in person, when coming to seek their 
punishment in l6i2, preserved and developed 
within it the seeds of that power, which, in 1676, 
voted the exclusion of the only brother of the 



143 

reigning king from the succession to the throne, 
and in 1688, spoke the voice of the nation in de- 
claring that brother for ever an alien to that throne, 
of which he had proved himself unworthy. 

Nor is the difference of the two national cha- 
racters less remarkable in the conduct, than in 
the motive of their civil commotions. 

The reluctance with which in England both 
parties resorted to arms ; the length and patience 
of the discussions, in which one side claimed, 
and the other allowed, rights, at that time un- 
heard of in the other governments of Europe, 
contrasts remarkably with the unfortunate pre- 
cipitancy with which, 150 years afterwards, the 
Declaration of Rights was made and enforced in 
France at the beginning of her Revolution. The 
same reluctance is observable in the appeal at 
last made by England to the " ratio ultima " of 
nations, as well as of princes, and the same pre- 
cipitancy in the whole conduct of the Fronde. 
The facility with which the leaders on either side 
raised armies to support pretensions, or avenge 
wrongs, in which those armies had neither in- 
terest nor participation, marks the unaltered mo- 
bility of the national character, its love of mili- 
tary enterprise, and of the bustle and business of 
military glory. 

With us, the troops were enlisted, not as the 



144 

followers of such or such a leader, but called on 
to defend by arms, in the last resort, a solemn 
league and covenant between the governors and 
the governed, which they had all individually 
sworn to observe and to maintain. The few 
followers who surrounded the standard of the 
unfortunate monarch, when first erected against 
such opponents, proved how entirely a convic- 
tion of the identity of their oxai rights, with 
those they were called on to assert, was necessary 
to bring them into action. 

The great Conde, and the still greater Turenne, 
while enlisting troops, throwing themselves into 
fortresses, and making treaties with Spain, to 
expel a powerful minister, the moment he op- 
posed their individual pretensions, appear to the 
unprejudiced eyes of posterity merely employ- 
ing a morbid activity to get possession of power, 
which they knew no more than their opponent 
how to use. All idea of bettering the condition 
of the country was alike out of the question on 
either side. Nor were these leading personages, 
in fact, better informed of their real interest, 
and real duties, or less vulgarly ignorant of 
every principle of civil liberty, on which they 
supposed themselves acting, than the lowest fol- 
lower of their camp. 

The female characters which these times pro- 



145 

duced offer a still more striking contrast to their 
English contemporaries. Cardinal de Retz and 
Cromwell (however dissimilar) may still be said 
to resemble each other more than the Duchesse 
de Longueville and Mrs. Hutchinson. At the 
peace of the Pyrenees, Mazarin told the Spanish 
minister Don Louis de Haro, who was stipu- 
lating for the return of Madame de Longueville 
as well as of her brother the Grand Conde to 
court — " Vous autres Espagnols, vous parlez 
" fort a votre aise ; vos femmes ne se melent que 
M de faire l'amour ; mais en France, ce n'est pas 
" de meme, et nous en avons trois, qui seroient 
" capables de gouverner on de bouleverser trois 
" grands royaumes — la Duchesse de Longueville, 
" la Princess Palatine, et la Duchesse de Che- 
" vreuse." It may be doubted if their political 
abilities were not much over-rated by the crafty 
cardinal. Their influence, however, and that of 
their associates, on the future character and 
social existence of their sex in France was per- 
manent, and remained in almost undiminished, 
although less apparent force, until swept into 
the gulf of the Revolution. 

Cardinal de Retz has said of the Duchesse de 
Longueville, that " de l'heroine d'un grand parti 
"elle endevint l'aventuriere." Some degree of per- 
sonal pique may be suspected to have pointed the 



146 



antithesis of this sentence ; but the contrast that 
he remarks between the languor of her manner 
and the activity of her mind, is confirmed by all 
contemporary accounts. Madame de Motteville 
is an unwilling and indisputable witness to the 
power of her charms, and their effect on all 
around her (1), a part of which must probably have 
arisen from that unlooked-for contrast between 
the character of her beauty and that of her mind 
noticed by de Retz. Under a complexion of lilies 
and roses, blue eyes, and a quantity of fair hair, 
accompanied by a languid, indolent manner, was 
unexpectedly found the mind of a heroine of 
romance, who was the witness, as well as the 
cause, of single combats in defence of her honour; 



(1) " Elle avoit la taille admirable, et Pair de sa per- 
" sonne avoit un agrement dont le pouvoir s't'tendoit meme 
" sur notre sex. II etoit impossible de la voir sans l'aimcr, 
" et sans desirer de lui plaire. Sa beaute neanmoins con- 
11 sistoit plus dans les couleurs de son visage, que dans la 
c< perfection de ses traits. Ses yeux n'ctoient pas grands, 
" mais beaux, doux, et brillants, le bleu en etoit admirable, 
" il etoit pareil a celui des turquoises. Les poe'tes ne pou- 
" voient jamais comparer aux lys et aux roses, le blanc et 
« Pincarnat qu'on voyoit sur son visage, et ses cheveux 
" blonds et argentes, et qui accompagnoient tant de choses 
" merveilleuses, faisoit qu'elle ressembloit beaucoup plu> a 
«< un ange, tel que la faiblesse de notre nature nous les fait 
11 imaginer, qu'a une femme." — Madame de Motteville, 
torn. ii. p. 16. 



147 

who incited to deeds of arms, and who traversed 
hostile countries to rejoin her lover, or to bring 
succour to her friend. 

An extraordinary combination of circumstances 
gave Madame de Longueville that influence over 
her contemporaries, which she undoubtedly pos- 
sessed : it has elevated her name into almost 
historical celebrity ; while her character, not- 
withstanding her endowments, remains rather as 
a beacon than an example to her sex. 

She was the daughter of that Prince de 
Conde for whom Henry the Fourth had nearly 
sullied the lustre of his patriotic reign, by un- 
dertaking a war against Spain merely for the 
purpose of forcing back a young princess of 16 
years old from the retreat in which a prudent 
husband had accompanied her, to avoid the im- 
portunities of her royal admirer. Such a passion 
at 56, could not hope to obtain either the 
success or the indulgence shown to his earlier 
amours. The public perfectly understood the 
absence of the Prince and Princess of Conde (1), 



(1) The Prince of Conde was at that time first prince of 
the blood, and, after Gaston Due d'Orleans, in immediate 
succession to the throne. He was known, therefore, by 
the appellation of Monsieur le Prince, and his wife, even 
after her family no longer stood in the same relation to the 
crown, by that of Madame la Princejse. 

L 2 



148 

and approved their conduct. Such, indeed, was 
their popularity at their return from Bruxelles 
to Paris, on the death of Henry the Fourth, 
that Mary of Medicis, at the outset of her regency, 
judged it expedient (for all pretence of either 
justice or law was out of the question) to send 
the Prince to the Bastille. From the Bastille, 
after some weeks, he was removed to Vincennes, 
where he remained two years, where his wife 
was allowed to join him, and where the Duchesse 
de Longueville was born in 1619. Her mar- 
riage with the Due de Longueville, a Prince of 
the Orleans branch of the blood royal, in 1642, 
seems to have been settled by her father only 
because, at the age of twenty-three, no other 
French prince had sought to obtain her hand. 
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, her relation and 
contemporary, in her Memoires, pities her for this 
union more than she seems to have pitied herself: 
she says, " Mr. de Longueville fut pour elle 
" une cruelle destinee ; il etoit vieux, elle etoit 
" fort jeune, et belle comme un ange. Cette 
" facheuse disproportion n'empecha pas qu'elle 
" ne s'accommodat a ce parti de tres bonne grace, 
" ce que je remarquai fort bien a ses frai^ailles 
" ou je fus price." (1) 

(1) Memoires de Montpensier, torn. i. p. 59. 



149 

This union took place only the year before 
her brother, the grand Conde, yet under the title 
of Due d'Enghien, had obtained the victory of 
Rocroi. The triumph of this heaven-born cap- 
tain — for so we must call a prince of the blood 
commanding in chief at twenty-two ! — cast a 
lustre both on himself and his family, which 
neither he nor they seem to have borne with 
moderation. Their pretensions became unli- 
mited, their demands exorbitant, and the po- 
litical situation of the country favoured both. 

A victory gained three days after the death of 
a sovereign, whose authority devolved on an 
infant under the guardianship of an unexpe- 
rienced mother, was a service likely to be ex- 
aggerated by all parties. In this instance the 
charms of the sister combined with the valour of 
the brother to bestow on them both that omnipo- 
tence which fashion only had the power of con- 
ferring in France, above, and in spite of every 
other species of despotism. (1) 

Within a year after the marriage of the 



(1) The name of Petit Maitre, which has remained in the 
language, it is known, was first given to the airs of import- 
ance and superiority assumed by the friends and society 
of the Grand Conde. It had succeeded to that of les 
Importans, of which the Due de Beaufort had been the 
leader. 

L 3 



150 

Duchesse de Longueville, a supposed doubt 
thrown on the purity of her character by a letter 
dropped in the society of a rival beauty, Madame 
de Monbazon, was considered as the sufficient 
and necessary cause of a duel in defence of that 
honour which she afterwards so often risked. 
This duel, which took place in the Place Roy ale 
in the centre of Paris, at noonday, and which 
must have resembled the encounter of two of 
Ariosto's Paladins, ended in the death of her 
champion, the Comte de Coligny. The fair 
object was said to have been a spectatress of 
the combat from a window in the square. This 
circumstance, whether true or false, and the 
whole of the transaction, is an additional proof 
of the remarkable change of manners which took 
place during the ensuing reign of Louis the 
Fourteenth. Madame de Longueville soon after 
accompanied her husband to Munster, whither 
he was sent as ambassador on the part of France 
to treat of peace. From thence she made a tour 
into Holland and Germany, and only returned 
to Paris in the year 1647. Such was the eclat 
with which she re-appeared, such the honours 
with which she was received by Anne of Austria, 
and such her own distinguished rank in society, 
that neither reason nor apology seems to have 
been left her for fomenting discontents against 



151 

the court, and inciting her husband and her 
brothers to separate their interests from it. The 
Hotel de Longueville and the Hotel de Conde 
were more crowded and more frequented courts 
than either the Luxembourg, inhabited by the 
Duke of Orleans, or the Palais Royale, by the 
King and Queen-mother. " On eut dit," says her 
biographer, " qu'elle etoit jalouse d'elle-meme, 
" tant elle avoit envie d'encherir toujours sur le 
" grand credit dont elle jouissoit." The desire to 
act a more distinguished part than was com- 
patible with peaceable times, and to acquire the 
facility of yielding to sentiments of which those 
times would not have permitted the indulgence, 
could alone have dictated her conduct. It leaves 
very problematical the assertion of Cardinal de 
Retz, " que si le Prieur des Chartreux l'avoit 
" plu, elle auroit ete solitaire de bonne foL" 

A difference in opinion on the merits of two 
sonnets seems at this time to have had no incon- 
siderable effect in increasing the animosity against 
the court, and animating the fashionable oppo- 
sition to its taste as well as to its measures. The 
verses of Benserade being protected and ad- 
mired by the Queen and her adherents, Madame 
de Longueville and her society declared for 
those of Voiture. 

Of this society, the power of its decrees, and 
l 4 



1,52 

all that its approbation gave or withheld, Ma- 
dame de Motteville has left us an entertaining 
picture. Of the particular tone of its convers- 
ation she says, " La fine raillerie dont elle 
" (Madame de Longueville), et ses courtisans 
" faisoient profession, tomboit souvent sur ceux 
" qui, en lui voulant rendre leurs devoirs, sen- 
" toient a leur dommage, que l'honnete sincerite, 
" qui se doit observer dans la societe civile, 
" etoit apparemment bannie de la sienne." It is 
impossible here not to recognize the beginning of 
that habit of persiflage, which so long constituted 
one of the most admired talents in French so- 
ciety ; which in later times, under the vulgar 
form and name of quizzing, spread into a neigh- 
bouring country, and which is yet by no means 
banished as entirely as it deserves from the 
social intercourse of either. 

A weak and indolent queen, governed by a 
mean, artful, and avaricious minister ; opposed 
by magistrates, who assumed rights, to which 
accidental circumstances gave them their only 
claim ; both parties alternately supported and 
abandoned by a factious nobility, who on either 
side only sought their own personal distinction ; 
such were the ignoble causes, which for more 
than five years involved France in that scene 
of turbulence and confusion, of inconsiderate 



153 

severity and disgraceful concessions, from which 
none of the principal actors retired with honour; 
which, after much unnecessary bloodshed and 
unprovoked cruelties, ended without leaving a 
trace of its existence, either on the institutions, 
the government, or the laws of the country. 

During these five years, we find Madame de 
Longneville sometimes enthroned at the Hotel 
de Ville at Paris, surrounded by a crowd of 
adorers, with generals and statesmen receiving 
her orders, and seeking her counsel, the oracle 
of her family, and the idol of her party. Some- 
times proudly submitting to the court, sometimes 
flying into exile before its forces. Alternately 
the ally and the opponent of her brother, the 
grand Conde, and always for equally futile 
reasons. Her name sometimes associated with 
that of Turenne, in the least commendable part 
of his illustrious career; and sometimes dis- 
graced by receiving money from the enemies of 
her country to support her in plans of opposition 
to it. At last, " not leaving faction, but by 
" it being left," we find her shut up in Bour- 
deaux, with all the remaining Frondeurs, who 
were split into as many factions as there were 
generals, and herself heartily weary of a provin- 
cial and almost besieged town, where she no 
longer commanded. Here, on the approach of 



154 

the court, all the faithful followers of these dis- 
interested leaders united in abandoning their 
cause, and insisting on making their peace with 
the King. The Duke de Vendome took pos- 
session of Bourdeaux in the King's name, and 
the Fronde ended, leaving every thing for which 
they had been cutting one another's throats 
exactly where they found it, except the power 
of Cardinal Mazarin, which was confirmed and 
augmented by their opposition. 

With the Fronde ended the brilliant part of 
the Duchesse de Longueville's career. Her 
beauty was on the wane, her admirer the Due 
de la Rochefoucauld no longer the slave of her 
charms, no longer inclined " pour plaire a ses 
" beaux yeux," to make war either against the 
gods or the King. Disgusted by her inconstancy 
in sentiments more appropriate to her sex than 
those of ambition and politics, he not only 
abandoned her cause, but persuaded her brother 
no longer to be misguided by her advice. 

The internal peace of the country being 
restored, her " occupation was gone," and to 
the court she was not allowed access. From 
Bourdeaux she was sent to Montreuil-Bellay, 
and from thence permitted to remove to Moulins, 
where the widow of her uncle, the beheaded 
Due de Montmorency, had taken the veil, and 



155 

was then the superior of the convent ; in whose 
church she had erected the admirable monu- 
ment, which still exists, to the memory of her 
husband. Here the Duke de Longueville joined 
his wife. He seems, either from indifference 
or from real attachment, to have been a most 
forgiving husband (1). He had endeavoured in 
vain to negotiate her peace at court, where he 
had long made his own. He now opposed the 
intention in which he found her of becoming a 
Carmelite, and reprobated the rigour and excess 
of the penances she was inflicting on herself; 
for about this time her conversion (as it was 
called) began. Repentance and devotion were 
the only parts left her to act, and she assumed 
them with all the eagerness and intemperance 
which she had formerly employed on politics 
and gallantry. Bishops, priests, and nuns be- 
came now what the leaders of the Fronde and 



(1) Cardinal de Retz says of him, " Monsieur de Lon- 
" gueville avoit avec le beau nom d'Orleans, de la vivacite", 
" de l'agrement, de la defense, de la liberalite, de la jus- 
" tice, de la valeur, de la grandeur, et il ne fut jamais qu'un 
« homme mediocre, parce qu'il eut toujours des id£es qui 
" furent infiniment au dessus de sa capacite. Avec la ca- 
" pacite, et les grands desseins, Ton n'est jamais compte 
" pour rien, quand on ne les soutien pas, Ton n'est jamais 
" compte pour beaucoup, et c'est ce qui fait le mediocre." 
— Memoires de Retz, liv. ii. p. 215. 



156 

the municipality of Paris had formerly been to 
her, and she to them. She took an active part 
in the affairs of the Jansenists, and against the 
persecution of the Port-Royal institutions ; and 
having given up all temporal intrigues, her rest- 
less mind and love of sway took refuge in spi- 
ritual schisms and disputes. She was in direct 
correspondence with the Pope (1), and became 
the patroness of all the religious factions and 
oppositions of the day, while supposing herself 
wholly devoted to the interests of piety, and to 
the white- washing her own soul from its worldly 
stains. (2) Among the first and best fruits of 
her conversion and altered life, was a greater 
attention to the wishes and to the interests of her 
husband, from whom she no longer separated 
herself. From Moulins she accompanied him 
to his government of Normandy, where she was 
distinguished by her beneficence and charities, 
and where she remained till his death. 

Of their two sons, the eldest had appeared in 
his mother's arms, when, as a hostage for the 



(1) Alexander the Seventh (Ottoboni). 

(2) It was said of her, ** Qu'elle eut le talent de faire 
" encore du bruit en faisant son salut, et de se sauver sur 
" la meme planche de l'enfer et de 1'ennui." — Lettres de 
Madame de Sevigne', GrouvehVs edit. torn. v. p. 142. in the 
notes. 



157 

sentiments of her family, she was presented to 
the populace of Paris, on the steps of the Hotel 
de Ville, by the Cardinal de Retz. The second 
son was born soon after within its walls, and 
received the name of Charles Paris, from the 
magistrates of the city, who became his god- 
fathers. 

If, as was said, she had taken great pains with 
their education, it must have been ill directed. 
The eldest, the Comte de Dunois, from a sort of 
religious insanity, insisted on becoming a priest, 
took regular orders, and was known in the world 
only by the name of the Abbe d'Orleans. The 
derangement of his understanding afterwards 
taking a more decided and indubitable form, he 
was obliged to make a dotation of his estates and 
property to his brother, the Comte de St. Pol, 
who took the title of Due de Longueville, and 
was killed by a cannon ball at the passage of the 
Rhine, in 1672, under the eye of his uncle, the 
Grand Conde. On the manner in which his 
mother received this intelligence, her biographer, 
a priest, (who writes with the intention of hold- 
ing her up as a saint, and her conversion as an 
example to all the worldly,) dwells with much 
admiration. " Est-il mort sur le champ ?" was 
her first question. On receiving no answer, she 
exclaimed, " Ah ! repondez-moi ; mon fils, mon 



158 



" cher enfant, n'a-t-il pas eu un seul moment ? 
" Ah ! mon Dieu ! quel sacrifice !" — " Car, chez 
" elle," says her biographer, " la nature ne par- 
" loit qu'apres la religion.'' Madame de Sevigne, 
after mentioning the same particulars, gives a 
more affecting, and probably much more faithful, 
picture of the scene. She adds a remark, worthy 
of her tender and affectionate character, on the 
circumstance of the Due de la Rochefoucauld 
having likewise lost a son on the same occasion. 
Of these two persons, who, from having been 
long more than friends, had long become more 
than strangers, she says, " J'ai dans la tete, que 
" s'ils s'etoient rencontres tous deux seuls dans 
m ces premiers momens, tous les autres sentimens, 
" auroient fait place a des cris et des larmes, que 
" Ton auroit doubles de bon cceur."(l) 

In spite of Madame de Longueville's abstrac- 
tion from all worldly affairs, we find her soon 
after engaged in a law- suit with her husband's 
daughter, the Duchesse de Nemours, for the 
possession of the principality of Neufchatel, 
claimed by the Duchesse de Nemours, on the 
death of her half-brother, the Due de Longue- 
ville. 

Several great theologians, it seems, took the 

(1) Lettres de Madame de Sevigne, torn. iii. p. 150. 



159 

part of Madame de Longueville ; but, says the 
author of her life, as "la jurisprudence et la 
" theologie ont differentes manieres de raison- 
" ner," she would have lost her cause, had not 
the King (according to the laudable custom of 
those days) intervened, and, in opposition to the 
law, (which such intervention always supposes) 
ordered the possession to remain with the Du- 
chesse de Longueville. By the impartial public, 
it would seem, that her character was still vari- 
ously estimated, even in these her days of grace. 
An instance of her marvellous forbearance and 
Christian charity, cited by her biographer, is a 
much stronger proof of the strange, inconsistent 
licence of the times, than of any particular ele- 
vation in her sentiments. He tells us, that Bussy 
Rabutin, having unwarrantably abused the Grand 
Conde in some of his satirical writings, a gentle- 
man of his household had determined to avenge 
his prince, by arming all the lower servants of 
the Hotel de Conde, and murdering Bussy in the 
streets of Paris. Madame de Longueville (like- 
wise abused by Bussy) being informed of the in- 
tention, went immediately and discovered it to 
her brother, beseeching him to save their ene- 
my's life ; to which request, says the author, the 
Prince nobly consented. 

The remainder of the Duchesse de Longue- 



160 

ville's life was passed at Paris, in what were then 
called practices of devotion, between the two 
convents of Port- Royal des Champs, and the Car- 
melites of the Fauxbourg S. Jacques ; her time 
occupied by the business which their affairs, pre- 
tensions, and persecutions gave her ; and her con- 
science quieted by the penances she gave herself. 
These are reported to have been so severe, and so 
constant, that on one occasion, in pulling out her 
pocket-handkerchief, a girdle of iron dropped on 
the floor, which was picked up and restored to her 
by one of the company, before whom it fell ; an 
accident of which she must have been too well 
aware of the effect to be perfectly free from the 
suspicion of having contrived it ; while the com- 
pany, perhaps, were too well acquainted with her 
character to have felt much for her self-inflicted 
sufferings. But this is only one of the many in- 
stances of that sort of conventional dupery, in 
moments of representation and effect, exhibited in 
French society, even to this day, with never-failing 
success. The severities of her life were, however, 
believed to have increased a disease of languor 
which now attacked her, and which, ending in 
fever, put a period to her existence at fifty-nine 
years of age. During her illness, she would see 
nobody but her brother, the Grand Conde ; and 
died, surrounded by all the consolations which 



161 



the Roman Catholic religion offers to its true be- 
lievers. Among the followers of her pompous 
funeral was remarked the Due de la Rochefou- 
cauld, himself destined not to survive her a twelve- 
month. His character was now ripened by reason 
and by time; and having long enjoyed the sweets 
of repose, which he well knew how to employ, he 
must have looked back with wonder, if not regret, 
to all the petulant pretensions of their younger 
days. 



M 



102 



CHAPTER IV. 



MUCH PURITY OF CONDUCT AND EXCELLENCE OF FEMALE 
CHARACTER CONTEMPORARY WITH THE HEROINES 
OF THE FRONDE. MADAME DE SEVIGNE. MADE- 
MOISELLE DE VIGEAN. — THE DUCHESSE DE NAVAILLES. 
— THE AMUSEMENTS OF SOCIETY IN ENGLAND AND 

IN FRANCE. THE THEATRE. COMPARISON OF THAT 

OF FRANCE WITH THAT OF ENGLAND. 

The character of Madame de Longueville has 
been dwelt on more at length from her appear- 
ing to be the prototype of all the other heroines 
of her time, who, with fewer endowments either 
of nature or fortune, acted less brilliant but not 
less mischievous or less indecorous parts. The 
memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier of 
"La Grande Mademoiselle " a designation which 
must have been so agreeable to her, that she 
might be suspected of having bestow r ed it on 
herself) are perhaps in a social light the most 
curious of their day ; so accurately do they 
give the colour of the period they describe, and 
the measure of the pernicious and ridiculous 
influence of the women in all the most serious 



163 

affairs of the times. (1) Unaware of the com- 
plete ignorance she displays in every page of 
the first principles either of justice or moral 
feeling, she gives a curious and authentic de- 
tail of the opinions and the ideas then instilled 
into the minds of princes, as to their own con- 
duct, and as to their relative situation with 
respect to the rest of their fellow-creatures. 

The eagerness of the authoress to be doing 
something either for or against the court, is only 
to be distinguished from the same meddling dis- 
position in her female contemporaries by her not 
having the instigation of a lover or the excite- 
ment of any passion but a vague ambition to 
make herself remarkable. Her intrigues to 
marry either Louis the Fourteenth as soon as he 
was of age, or the grand Conde as soon as his 
wife was dead, or Charles the Second as soon as 
he should have recovered his kingdom, or the 



(1) When Gaston, Duke of Orleans, after a thousand 
fluctuations between the court and the Fronde, at last 
allowed his daughter to go to Orleans, and shut its gates 
on the King's troops ; seeing her depart, he said, " Cette 
" chevalerie seroit bien ridicule, si le bon sens de Mes- 
" dames de Fiesque, et de Frontenac ne la soutenoit." He 
afterwards addressed his letters to them, " a Mesdames 
" les Comtesses, Aides-de-Camps dans l'Armee de ma 
« Fille." 

M 2 



L 



164 

Emperor of Germany, although old enough to 
be her father, and no way inclined to the 
alliance, sufficiently prove the absence of any 
sentiment but that of ambition. The individual 
merit of the persons she seems to have weighed 
exactly according to the scale of their rank in 
the precedence of Europe. When at last all 
these schemes for sovereign power had failed, 
when no longer young, she found herself left, with 
no other interest or occupation in life than that 
arising from the rigid observance of the eti- 
quettes whicli she exacted towards herself; from 
her often offended feelings on the distinctions of 
the chaise a dos,fauteuils and plums granted to 
others, and the self-important injustice with 
which she interfered in the little squabbles of 
her household ; then nature seems to have 
reclaimed her rights, and she felt or feigned love 
where her vain and domineering spirit would at 
least have been gratified by the object of her 
passion owing every thing to her gifts. 

The history of the Due de Lauzim is well 
known. A younger brother of the family of 
Caumont, without fortune, brought to the court 
of Louis the Fourteenth to seek his fortune, 
with very moderate abilities, and no distinguished 
military service : he rose to such favour with the 
King, that he obtained his consent to marry 



165 

Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the King's first 
cousin, the greatest heiress in France, and pos- 
sessing sovereign rights over many of her vast do- 
mains. Madame de Sevigne's lively letter on the 
subject gives a picture of the surprise excited in 
the court of Louis the Fourteentli by this event. 
It was such as showed the King he had done more 
than he ever intended to do for any subject. By a 
most cruel and unjustifiable exercise of arbitrary 
power the marriage was stopped, by his order, 
on the very day before its public celebration. 
Finding it not equally easy to prevent a private 
union between the parties, the unfortunate hero 
of these adventures, within a year afterwards, 
was on this account sent to the castle of Pignerol, 
a state-prison at the southern extremity of 
France, there to mourn the loss of his ambitious 
views, if not of his princess, and there he was 
actually detained ten years. The memoirs of 
the princess herself give the best account of her 
feelings on these arbitrary proceedings, which, 
however much she laments, never alter for a 
moment her belief in the infallible justice of the 
King. It is from other sources we are informed, 
that, after all the romance of life was over, when 
he was freed from his prison, and she from every 
illusion of passion, that they lived together on 
very bad terms, and that his violence, and as- 

M 3 



166 

sumed authority over her, was such, as to have 
given rise to the report of his ordering her, 
by the unceremonious appellation of Louise 
d'Orleans, to draw off his boots. 

Madame de Chevreuse, Madame de Montbazon, 
the Princess Palatine, and Madame d'Olonne, who 
figure in the Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, and 
other histories of the time, were all mere varieties 
of the same species of meddling character, which 
had distinguished la Grande Mademoiselle. 

The unresisted despotism of Louis the Four- 
teenth repressed this general spirit of political 
intrigue. It was, however, perpetuated in the 
characters of Mesdames de Montespan and de 
Maintenon, and exhibited in all its deformity by 
the Princess des Ursins. It was suspended for 
a moment by the overwhelming profligacy of the 
Regent's court, but re-appeared in the base and 
feeble intrigues of the Chateauneufs, the Pom- 
padours, and the Tencins of Louis the Fifteenth, 
till it sunk in the positive and irretrievable de" 
gradation of Madame du Barri. 

The virtues of Louis the Sixteenth, and the 
showy endowments of his Queen, unfortunate] v 
for them both, transferred to her that power of 
interference, which, in other times, characters 
less appropriate had wielded with still less discre- 
tion. But the spirit of meddling intrigue which 



167 

in former days had been collected, as in a focus, 
around the mistress of the monarch or the 
minister, had, at the end of the last century, 
spread through the whole mass of female society. 
Every body had a circle of dependants, every 
body was a patron, or was patronised, according 
to the society in which they were found. All 
had some interests in life, which necessarily 
carried them into the tortuous and degrading 
paths of intrigue, where alone they could pursue 
their object; and where this object, however 
honourable or legitimate, could only be attained 
by a reciprocity of indirect means, and often of 
unworthy services. A sedulous cultivation of 
every power to please, to persuade, and to 
seduce, which belongs particularly to the female 
sex, was necessary to their success. It made 
the women, therefore, in general agreeable, 
intelligent companions, and sometimes inestim- 
able friends. But the neglect of all the severer 
virtues so deteriorated the female character, 
and so banished all truth of principle from its 
social relations, that perhaps nothing less than 
the dreadful remedy administered by the Revolu- 
tion could have awakened them to a sense of 
their real interests, and restored the women of 
France to their true and appropriate consider^ 
ation in society. Let it, however, be remem- 

m 4 



168 

bered, in a comparative view of the merits of 
the age of which we have been speaking, that, 
while the Duchesse de Longueville and her 
associates were neglecting the honourable dis- 
tinctions and seemly virtues of their sex, in the 
indulgence of unrestrained passions, and the 
pursuit of a dubious fame, Madame de Sevigne, 
their contemporary, while adorned by every 
grace, was also devoted to every duty of her 
sex and situation. Mademoiselle de Vigean 
allowed not a mutual passion for an enamoured 
hero either as an excuse for misconduct or as 
the means of stepping into an indecorous cele- 
brity. (1) Madame de Navailles incurred, with- 



(1) The mutual passion of the Grand Conde (then Due 
d'Enghien) and Mademoiselle Vigean is rendered interest- 
ing by the successful struggles she opposed to sentiments 
she more than participated. To conceal from the public 
eye his devotion to her, and not to offend that decorum, 
which was as yet exacted even from the most exalted rank, 
perhaps, too, in compliance with the love of mystery ever 
sought by real passion, she insisted on his feigning an at- 
tachment, and bestowing his public attentions on Mademoi- 
selle de Bouteville Montmorency. But soon dreading the 
charms of her self-inflicted rival, her admirer, to convince 
her of his unshaken faith, not only immediately ceased to 
see his pretended mistress, but, in spite of all opposing 
difficulties of fortune and religion, made up a marriage for 
her with her real lover, the Chevalier de Chatillon, whom 
Conde, on his side, had dreaded as a proposed husband for 



169 

out hesitation, all the pains and penalties which 
it was then in the power of a young, angry, and 
absolute monarch to inflict, rather than betray 
those duties, which her conscience as well as 



the woman who, although without hopes of possessing him- 
self, he could not bear to see the wife of another. The 
wild dictates of ungratified passion then led him to think 
of taking measures to obtain a divorce from his princess 
(of the family of Mailly Breze), on the plea of a marriage 
too early in life for mutual consent, and thus to obtain the 
liberty of offering his hand, as well as his heart, to his 
virtuous mistress. But she, to avoid all further scandal, 
and to secure herself from importunities which she might 
doubt her own powers to resist, soon after the marriage of 
her pretended rival, retired from the world to the austerities 
of a Carmelite convent. In religion and in heaven she 
sought the only consolation of which sentiments like hers 
were capable, whose purity, as well as constancy, could not 
long be shared by an earthly lover. 

In the Memoires de Courart we are told, (speaking of the 
combat at the Porte St. Antoine during the Fronde,) that it 
was by a sort of miracle that the Prince of Conde" escaped 
alive, not only because he exposed himself more than he had 
ever done in any previous action, but because " on disoit qui 
" St. Mesgrin, qui, outre qu'il etoit tres vaillant, avoit depuis 
" longtems une haine particuliere contre Monsieur le Prince 
" a cause de la seconde fille du Marquis de Vigean, qui 
" est maintenant Carmelite, et dont St. Mesgrin etant fort 
" amoureux, et en termes de l'epouser, Monsieur le Prince 
" devint amoureux, et l'obligea de quitter prise, ce qu'il 
" n'avoit jamais pu oublier." — Memoires de Valentin Cou- 
rart, p. 112. 



170 

her situation dictated. (1) To these examples, 
taken from the immediate society of those who 

(1) The Duchesse de Navailles was the dame d'honneur 
to the Queen of Louis the Fourteenth, to whose charge the 
conduct and behaviour of the maids of honour was com- 
mitted, six of whom were then attached to the household of 
the Queen. It was a difficult and invidious duty, in which 
she could expect no assistance from her charge. They 
were all willing to be admired, and the King so willing to 
admire them, that Madame de Navailles soon discovered 
intentions of his Majesty to make visits to their apartment 
without passing through hers. Her expostulations he re- 
ceived at first with good humour, and then with such polite- 
ness as persuaded her she should escape his anger : but he 
soon gave her to understand, by no less grave a personage 
than le Tellier, not only that her conduct, if persisted in, 
would incur his serious displeasure, but that he desired she 
would abstain from any interference with the maids of 
honour ; at the same time proposing to her several ways 
of accommodating herself to his wishes, and saving appear- 
ances with respect to herself. Madame de Navailles rejected 
them all ; declared, as long as it pleased the King to leave 
her in her office, she would fulfil the duties of it to the best 
of her abilities. She threw herself at the King's feet, 
avowed all the obligations of herself and her husband to 
his favour, and beseeched him " de chercher ailleurs que 
11 dans la maison de la Heine, qui est la votre, les objets de 
" vos plaisirs et de vos inclinations." The King was for a 
moment struck with her bold integrity, but continuing his 
clandestine visits, the intrepid dame d'honneur had gratings 
of iron placed at a certain window which had been the 
means of his entry at undue hours. The consequence was, 
at no long distance of time, the dismissal of herself and 
her husband from all their places at court, and an exile to 
the country, which her husband chose to share with her. 



171 

the least resembled them in conduct, might 
doubtless be added thousands of others less dis- 
tinguished by their situation or their talents, but 
not less commendable for their virtues. 

The scruples, the unconquered shame, and the 
early retreat of la Valiere ; the blustering demands 
of Monsieur de Montespan for a wife already the 
acknowledged mistress of Louis the Fourteenth, 
and the attention with which the children of this 
connexion were long concealed from the world, 
are all indubitable signs of the respect yet paid 
to public decency, and that fashion at least was 
still on the side of morality and good faith in 
the nearest relations of life. 

If in England fas has been before observed) the 
political influence of women was inconsiderable 
during a reign remarkable for its gallantries, 
that influence had been still more insignificant 
during the austerities of our political commotions, 
and it is remarkable, that Henrietta Maria after 
sixteen years' residence among us, had not found 
a single Englishwoman either capable or dis- 
posed to adopt her political views, to second her 
schemes, or even to accompany her on the first 
short visit that she made to the continent in 
I6i2, while more than half the people, and 
nearly all the nobility, remained still attached to 
the monarch, and to the monarchy. Lively, 



172 

petulant, and ill-judging as this Queen is de- 
scribed to have been(l), with what contempt we 
may suppose her looking down on the homely vir- 
tues of her subjects! — she, who had been brought 
up amidst all the political intrigues of her mother, 
Mary of Medicis, and taught to believe, that she 
was destined to bring back the country in which 
she reigned to the worship of the church of 
Rome. 

However mistaken her opinions of her sub- 
jects on matters of religion and government, 
she might certainly have been justified in feeling 
them very inferior to those of the country from 
whence she came, in social qualities, and all the 
rational amusements of life. When with us 
" civil dudgeon first grew high," France already 



(1) " Son temperament etoit tourne du cote de la gayete 
" et parmi les larmes, s'il arrivoit de dire quelque chose de 
" plaisant, elle les arretoit en quelque facon, pour divertir 
" la compagnie. La douleur quasi continuelle qui lui don- 
" noit alors beaucoup de serieux, et de mepris pour la vie, 
" la rendoit a mon gre plus solide, plus serieuse, et plus 
" estimable qu'elle l'auroit peut-etre ete, si elle avoit tou- 
" jours eu du bonheur. ***** De son naturel elle etoit 
" un peu depitee, et elle avoit de la vivacite. Elle soute- 
" noit ses sentimens avec de fortes raisons, mais elles etoient 
u accompagnies, d'une beaute, d'une raillerie, qui pouvoient 
" plaire et corriger tout ensemble les marques de hauteur 
'• et de courage qu'elle a donnees dans les actions priori- 
" pales de sa vie." — Madame de Mottevi/le. torn. i. 



173 

possessed a theatre, representing to an en- 
lightened and intelligent audience many of the 
pieces which still charm their descendants. In 
France, meetings of persons, whose disposition, 
taste, and situation suited each other, were al- 
ready habitual. Conversation on general sub- 
jects was already, by both sexes, cultivated as an 
accomplishment, and admired in both as a talent. 
In France men of letters were already called into 
general society, where their powers either of in- 
struction or amusement were not only imme- 
diately encouraged by the lively commendations 
of their audience, but rewarded, by elevating 
them to a sort of social equality with their su- 
periors in rank and riches. 

In England, although the education of the no- 
bility, titled and untitled, was as superior to that 
of any other of the cultivated nations of Europe 
as it has continued ever since ; although many 
of them carried away from the public schools 
and 'colleges, not only a taste for learning, but 
the habits of literary or scientific occupations ; 
yet to those born in a lower rank of life science 
and literature were only the means of raising 
them to distinction in the learned communities, 
to which they owed their proficiency, or to which 
they belonged. Instead of procuring them any 
influence in society, it was likely entirely to 



174 

alienate them from its intercourse : their oc- 
cupations, their fame, and their advancement 
being confined to the rich endowments for the 
encouragement of learning which at that time 
held out still greater incentives to exclusive at- 
tachment than at present. While their works, 
therefore, enriched the general stock of know- 
ledge, their talents in no respect contributed to 
the national fund of social enjoyment. The 
follies of the Fronde, the versatility of its heroes, 
and the adventures of its heroines, had already 
called forth a thousand occasional poets, who 
treated the object of their satire with the same gay 
frivolity they themselves treated the most serious 
affairs. While in France this period has left us 
volumes of epigrams, triolets, and mazarinades 
in every species of metre, hardly a single toler- 
able English stanza can be quoted on political 
subjects, from the year 1642 till the restoration. 
Those that remain are much more remarkable 
for their coarseness than their wit. (1) Had 
our sober-headed ancestors been as conversant 
with the follies of mankind as they were with their 
rights, the noble establishment of a consti- 



(1) As " The Rump, a Collection of Poems, S>-c. by the 
" most famous Wits from 1639 to 1661." Published in 
1662, one vol. 8vo. 



175 

tutional monarchy, in which they so long anti- 
cipated the other nations of Europe, would pro- 
bably never have required the " manum emenda- 
tricem" of the Revolution of 1688. 

Meetings merely for social intercourse seem 
at this time to have formed no part of an English 
existence, except on occasions of treating or 
concluding a marriage, the birth or coming of 
age of an heir, &c. &c. The three great festivals 
allowed by the Church of England, even before 
they were attacked by the holy army, not of 
martyrs, but of sectaries, seem to have been en- 
joyed by the common people more than by the 
upper orders of society. At great country seats, 
open house was kept at these seasons for all the 
tenants. A custom, not abolished, as we see by 
Mr. Evelyn's Diary, till long after this date. (1) 

Sometimes costly entertainments were made 
at the country-house of some great lord, on oc- 
casion of a royal progress. The Duchess of 
Newcastle mentions an entertainment given by 



(1) Mr. Evelyn says, in a letter to Dr. Bohun of the 18th 
of January, 1697, " I am planting an evergreen grove here 
" to an old house ready to drop, the economy and hospi- 
" tality of which my good old brother will not depart from, 
" but, more veteram, kept a Christmas in which we had 
" not fewer than 300 bumkins every holy day. " — Evelyns 
Works, vol. ii. 



176 

the Duke, her husband, to Charles the First and 
his Queen, the year after the King returned from 
being crowned in Scotland, which, she says, " cost 
" the Duke, in all, between fourteen and fifteen 
" thousand pounds ;" an almost incredible sum 
in those days. " This entertainment was made 
" at Bolsover Castle, some five miles distant 
" from Welbeck, and he resigned Welbeck for 
" their Majesties lodging." — " Ben Jonson he 
" employed in fitting such scenes and speeches 
" as he could best devise, and sent for all the 
" gentry of the county to come and wait on their 
" Majesties." — (Life of the Duke of Newcastle, 
p. 140.) 

In distant parts of the country, we must 
suppose the young people in the drawing-room 
partook of the gaiety going on in the hall, and 
morrice-dancers and mummers at Christmas, 
and Jack in the green and Maid Marion at May- 
day, supplied the place of the masks and pageants 
of the court. These masks, given sometimes by 
the court, and sometimes to it, by the students at 
the inns of court, by the city, or by some of its 
rich associations, seldom called forth the ex- 
ercise of much wit in their composer, or of much 
taste and judgment in their audience. In Mart- 
land' s History of London, there is a detailed ac- 
count of one of these masques, drawn up by 



177 

Whitelock, whose after-life was certainly not 
employed in contributing to the amusement of 
the royal family : it is thus announced : " A. D. 
" 1633. The King being returned from his 
" progress into Scotland, the gentlemen of the 
" four inns of court resolved to entertain their 
" Majesties with a pompous masquerade, which 
" for curiosity of fancy, excellency of perform- 
" ance, and dazzling splendour, far excelled 
" every thing of the kind that had ever been seen 
" in England, the charge whereof (according to 
" a celebrated author, who was one of the com- 
" mittee appointed for the preparation of that 
" magnificent show) amounted to above twenty- 
" one thousand pounds. 'Tis not to be doubted, 
" but this enormous sum, which without a per- 
" adventure may justly be reckoned the greatest 
" that ever was expended in this kingdom on 
" any occasion, other than a coronation, will 
" whet the desire of the curious to have the 
" said magnificent, pompous, and incomparable 
" masquerade described ; therefore, without 
" regarding its prolixity, I shall, for the satisfac- 
" tion of all such, insert an account thereof, as 
" published by the learned and ingenious White- 
" lock, one of the above-mentioned committee, 
" and author of the celebrated memorials." 
To this account, which certainly keeps its 

N 



178 

promise on the score of prolixity, the reader is 
referred in Maitland's History ofLondon, p. 186. 
It is chiefly remarkable for the satire conveyed 
in a part of the entertainment on the too pre- 
valent and abused habit of giving patents and 
exclusive privileges on frivolous pretences. 

"First in this antimasque (1) rode a fellow 
" upon a little horse, with a great bit in his 
" mouth, and upon the man's breast was a bit, 
" with a head stall and reins fastened, and sig- 



(1) By antimasque was meant groupes of grotesque per- 
sons who on these occasions either preceded or were in- 
termixed with the grand representation of the day. Thus, 
in the entertainment above quoted, the antimasques were 
first a band of beggars and cripples " mounted on the 
" poorest, leanest jades that could be gotten out of the 
" dust-carts and elsewhere," accompanied by an appropriate 
music of keys, tongs, &c. Then followed " many men 
" playing upon pipes, whistles, and instruments, sounding 
" like the notes of birds of all sorts," preceding what was 
called the antimasque of birds. " This was an owl in an 
" ivy bush, with many several sorts of other birds in a 
" cluster about the owl, gazing as it were upon her. These 
" were little boys put into covers of the shapes of those 
" birds, rarely fitted, and sitting on small horses with foot- 
" men going by them with torches in their hands. After 
" this antimasque came other musicians playing on bag- 
" pipes, hornpipes, and such kind of northern music, speak- 
" ing the following antimasque of Projectors to be of the 
" Scotch and northern quarters." — See Maitland's History 
of London. 



179 

" nifying a Projector, that none in the kingdom 
" might ride their horses but with such bits as 
" they should buy of him. Then came another 
" fellow, with a bunch of carrots on his head 
" and a capon on his fist, describing a Projector, 
" who begged a patent of monopoly, as the first 
" inventor of the art to feed capons fat with 
" carrots, and that none but himself should make 
" use of the invention, and have the privilege 
" for fourteen years, according to the statute. 
" Several other projectors were in like manner 
" personated in this antimasque, and it pleased 
" the spectators the more, because by them an 
" information was covertly given to the King 
" of these projects against the law ; and the 
" attorney Noy, who had the most knowledge 
" of them, had a great hand in this antimasque 
" of the Projectors." 

While in England Puritans and Presbyte- 
rians had agreed in declaring music an abomin- 
ation, and had abolished the theatre as an imme- 
diate invention of Satan (1), Cardinal Mazarin 



(1) The following notice of the theatre occurs in a 
weekly newspaper, published during the Protectorate, from 
the 28th December to the 5th January, 1655 : — 

" This day there being a play at the Red Bull in 
" St. John's Street, contrary to the statute, some soldiers 
" were drawn out, who surprised them on the stage, and 

N °2 



180 

had transplanted the opera, a production of his 
own country, at great expence to Paris. An opera, 
or drama entirely in music, was of recent inven- 
tion even in Italy. Eclogues, pastoral cantatas, &c. 
had, indeed, been recited with choruses, accom- 
panied or rather interspersed with music, from 
the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the 
year 1529, at an entertainment given at Messina 
by Don Garcia di Toledo to Donna Antonia 
Cordova, / dui Pellegrini of Luigi Tansillo, a 
" componimento scenico," was a part of the enter- 
tainment. It differed from eclogue only as 
comprising a complete action, with a happy 
ending. This exhibition was followed by many 
others of the same sort, given either at the fetes 
of princes to one another, or on occasion of their 
visiting universities or other learned bodies, 
who often prepared something of this sort, got 
up with much expence of decoration ; as in the 
case of the Aretusa of Alberto Lollia, a Ferrarese 
poet, acted in 1563, before the Duke Alphonso 
the second of Este, and the Cardinal Luigi, 
his brother, " La rappresentd Messei* Lndovico 
" Belli, fece la musica Alphonso Viola, fu l'ar- 



" returned with the players' habits (which they had seized) 
"upon themselves." — Wroxton Collection of Pamphlets, 
vol. xxxix. 



»* 




181 

" chitetto e depintor della scena Messer Rinaldo 
" Costabili, fece la spesa Puniversita degli scolari 
" di legge." At length appeared the Aminta of 
Tasso, a complete pastoral drama, accompanied 
by choruses and interacts of music. It was first 
acted at Ferrara in 1573, and the same year at 
Florence, with much magnificence of decoration 
and universal applause. Its success produced 
a crowd of imitations, which, in spite of the 
praises of their own day, have, in ours, sunk 
nearer the level of their real merits. Still these 
dramas were all to be recited, and not sung, 
and to be interspersed, not accompanied, by 
music. The music, it would seem, however, 
formed so attractive a part of the performance, 
that Orazio Vecchi, a poet and music-master of 
Modena, at last resolved to try the effect of a 
drama entirely accompanied by music -, and his 
Anfiparnasso was represented in 1597* It was 
sung by Arlequino, Pantalone, il Dottore, and 
the other masks, then in complete possession of 
Italian comedy, and is considered as the first 
real attempt at the opera buffa. 

Whether the same idea, under another form, 
had occurred at Florence as well as at Modena, or 
w 7 hether the success of the Anfiparnasso had any 
part in the contemporary attempt at Florence, 
seems doubtful. But the same year, 1597> Ot- 

n 3 



182 

tavio Rinuncini, a noble Florentine, aided by 
Giacomo Corsi, a great lover of music, and pro- 
tector of the arts, produced the first heroic 
melo-drama that Italy had yet seen. The 
Dqfne was represented at the house of the 
above-mentioned Corsi, before the Grand Du- 
chesse of Tuscany, with rapturous applause. It 
was followed, in 1600, by the Euridice, publicly 
exhibited at Florence on occasion of the mar- 
riage of Henry the Fourth with Mary of Medicis, 
to whom Rinuncini was a gentleman of the 
bed-chamber. The music of both these operas, 
and some others which succeeded them, was 
composed by Giacomo Peri, who is, therefore, 
regarded as the inventor of recitativo, and, 
together with Rinuncini and Corsi, as the 
founders of heroic or serious opera. (1) 

The first produced at Paris was at the end of 
the carnival of 1647 to Anne of Austria and her 
court, at the private cost of Cardinal Mazarin. 
Madame de Motteville, who was present, calls it 
" une comedie (1) a machines, et en musique, ,, 

(1) See Storia Critica de Teatri Antichi e Modemi di 
Pietro Napoli Signoiclli, vol. vi. p. 4-. et passim. Napoli, 
1813. 

(2) It will be remembered that the name of comtdic was 
common to all theatrical pieces at this time. The subject 
of the first opera was Orphee, certainly not the title of a 
burletta. 



183 

and informs us, that the Cardinal " avoit fait 
" venir les musiciens de Rome avec de grands 
*-' soins et le machiniste aussi, qui etoit un homme 
" de grande reputation pour ces sortes de spec- 
" tacles. Les habits en furent magnifiques, et 
" l'appareil tout de meme sorte." (2) She adds 
as a proof of the exact measure which Anne of 
Austria maintained between her pleasures and 
her devotions, that, in opposition to the Cardinal 
and to the Duke of Orleans, she would not allow 
the representations to continue in the ensuing 
Lent, and even went away herself, in the middle 
of the first representation, because it was given 
on a Saturday, and she retired to prepare for the 
religious duties of the ensuing day. 

This opera, after three representations during 
the carnival in which it was produced, was re- 
peated, in the following spring, at one of the 
fetes given at court to the Duchesse de Longue- 
ville, on her return from Munster. But the opera, 
as a national entertainment, does not seem to 
have acquired its present popularity till a later 
period, when the magnificent fetes of the youth 
of Louis the Fourteenth introduced, or rather 
confirmed, a taste for parade, for splendid dresses 
in assumed characters, dancers in rich uniform, 



(1) Madame de Motteville's Memoires, torn. i. p. 4-15. 
N 4 



184 



and military representations of other countries. 
These, from the Place de Carouzel, and from the 
Louvre, were transplanted, imitated, and domi- 
ciliated in a theatre destined to their sole exhi- 
bition. (1) The French, however, seem to have 
reluctantly admitted their Italian visitor into the 
circle of their amusements until she had assumed 



(1) The next attempt at an Italian opera in Paris was at 
the fetes of the marriage of Louis the Fourteenth in 1660, 
when the Ercole Amante was given, with a French transla- 
tion of the poetry for those who did not understand Italian. 
From this time a taste for this species of drama seems to 
have gained ground in France. After two or three other 
attempts, frustrated by the death of its first patron, the 
Cardinal Mazarin, an Abbe Perrin obtained, in 1669, letters 
patent for the establishment of an " academie des operas en 
langue Francoise." Under his direction the opera of Pomone, 
with French words of his own composition, was represented 
for eight successive months with much applause. This was 
followed by another under the name of Les Peines et les 
Plaisirs de V Amour. But Perrin and his associates having 
disagreed, Jean Baptist Lulli, a native of Florence, by the 
favour of Madame de Montespan, was allowed to purchase 
their patents, and, in 1672, Lulli gave his first opera, Les 
Fetes de V Amour et de Bacchus. It was an arrangement of 
fragments of the music of different ballets which Lulli had 
composed for the King, adapted to the words of Quinault. 
This marriage of Italian music to French poetry succeeded 
so well to French ears, that it was followed by the operas of 
Cadmus, Alceste, I'hesee, Ati/s, Jsis, and many others, com- 
posed by the same united authors. — See Des Maizeaux, 
Life of St. Evremond, vol. i. p. 126. 



185 

an entirely French dress, and had learned to ex- 
press herself in accents under which her original 
country was hardly discoverable, and this at a 
time when their own comic and tragic muse were 
already established in that general popularity 
which they have ever since maintained. 

Without recurring to the incomparable 
farce (1) which had diverted the courtiers of 
Charles the Eighth, and was reproduced with 
undiminished effect to their descendants above a 
century afterwards, the French theatre possessed 
a regular comedy, in the Visionnaires of Des- 
marets, as early as the year 1637 ; and Corneille, 
after having produced the Cid in the same year, 
and Horace, Cinna, and Polyeucte in the suc- 
ceeding years, gave them the Menteur in 1644, 
several years before the inimitable and unrivalled 
Moliere had established their superiority in 
every species of legitimate comedy. (1) The 
Venceslaus of Rotrou, which dates even before 



(1) VAvocat Patelin, first written by Frangois Corbeuil 
in 1480, and since modernised by Brueys, who died in 
1723. 

(2) La Mere Coquette of Quinault, which Voltaire calls 
" piece a la fois de caractere et d'intrigue, et meme modele 
" d'intrigue," appeared in 1664-, when Moliere had only pro- 
duced Les Amans Magnifiques, La Princesse d'Elide, and 
Le Medecin malgre lui. 



186 



some of the chefs-d'oeuvre of Corneille, still holds 
its place on the French theatre, and is still a 
proof of the priority of that theatre in regular 
heroic drama. 

Those who shut their eyes to the beauties of 
this species of drama, and refuse to admit the 
data on which French tragedy must be judged, 
are essentially their own enemies, contract the 
sphere of their enjoyments, and convict them- 
selves of as narrow a scope of intellect as any 
one, who, being a great admirer of Milton, 
should deny all beauty to the Rape of the Lock, 
and be insensible to the wit of Hudibras. 

The tragic art may be compared to ideal 
beauty in the imitative arts. It must be nature, 
but it must be something more ; — it must be a 
generalized idea, formed from an accurate in- 
vestigation and minute knowledge of details, 
which the author and the artist have the power 
of applying to the subjects of which they treat, 
and of placing in the situation they desire. 
Thus in both will be found a faithful represent- 
ation of nature, although probably no individual 
could have sat for either of the pictures. 

Tragedy is a representation of human nature in 
extraordinary situations; comedy of those which 
may and do occur in every-day life. The one 
should have all the accuracy of a portrait, 



187 

marking every minute particular and little cha- 
racteristic of the individual, or the class of in- 
dividuals meant to be represented (1) ; the 
other, like the statue of a Jupiter, an Apollo, or 
a Mars, must personify the passion meant to be 
portrayed with all the concentrated expression 
gathered from every individual, and with the 
strongest features compatible with perfect grace, 
or in other words with good taste. It is in this 
grace or good taste that the English theatre is 
accused by its French rival of essentially failing ; 
while it is retorted on the French theatre, that 
what is there esteemed grace is often so un- 
natural as to be still farther removed from good 
taste, in a representation of human life. If the 
foregoing definition of tragedy be true, we must 
candidly allow that the accusation brought for- 
ward against our theatre on the part of the 
French is often merited, before we proceed to 
notice what, according to our ideas of the 
true nature and end of tragedy, may be con- 
sidered as a set-off against our faults. 

(1) Schlegel has well remarked of Shakspeare's comic 
characters, " Les personnages dont il a dessine les traits 
" avec detail sont, sous beaucoup de rapports, des individus 
" d'une nature tres-particuliere, mais ils ont cependant une 
<; signification plus etendue, et Ton peut tirer des theories 
<•' universelles de leurs qualites preponderantes." — Schlegel, 
Cours de Litterature Dramatique, torn. ii. p. 377. 



188 

A distinguished English critic some years ago, 
in a laudable attempt to draw the public atten- 
tion to the works of Ford, and other (perhaps too 
much neglected) dramatists previous to the 
Restoration, has asserted that the literature of 
England materially suffered by that event. Un- 
fortunately for the success of the dramatic 
authors whom this critic protects, he has brought 
forward scenes and passages from their works 
which he compares and equals with Shakspeare, 
— a luckless mode of praise, which has always 
the effect of magnifying the faults and lessening 
the merits of the passages compared, by recalling 
all the beauties of the inimitable original. (1) 
And here, before any attempt is made to estimate 
the comparative excellence of the two national 
theatres, it is wished to withdraw Shakspeare 
from our consideration. 

The admirers of the beauties of the French 
theatre (and the author of these pages professes 
to be one) can have no objection, and the zealous 
and exclusive advocates of the English drama, 
if they have a just appreciation of Shakspeare, 
of the enormous and incalculable distance at 
which he has left all rivals, in all languages and 
of all ages, will boldly place the scale of com- 

(1) Edinburgh Review. 



189 

parison, without involving Shakspeare in a 
parallel, either with the writers of his own or 
those of any other country — Shakspeare, who, 
if the soberness of our language allowed of it, 
would be hailed by the title of " Divine " with 
a much more universal assent of his country 
than ever it was bestowed, in an age of enthu- 
siasm, on a hardly less irregular poet. (1) An 
admirable and enthusiastic writer, in a general 
view of European literature, and its national 
effects (2), after speaking of several of Shak- 
speare' s dramas with a discrimination of his faults, 
and a feeling of his peculiar beauties, which led 
to suppose she was really aware of the poetic 
eminence, the unattainable height on which he 
stood, unfortunately adds, that " Otway, Rowe, 
" et quelques autres Poetes Anglois ont fait des 
" tragedies toutes dans le genre de Shakspeare, 
" et son genie en Venice Sauvee a presque 
" trouve son egal." — Here the English enthu- 
siasts for Shakspeare feel themselves obliged to 
differ as entirely from this judgment of their 
native bard as from any former critic of the 
same nation. But with no mean opinion, no 
unjust prejudices, no under- valuing of the genius, 
taste, and candour of its distinguished author, 

(1) Dante. (2) Madame de Stael, L'Allemagne. 



190 

no longer, alas ! to animate literature with the 
speculations of her enlightened mind, nor so- 
ciety with the charms of her inimitable con- 
versation. 

Her opinions on this subject are only an ad- 
ditional proof, that the genius of Shakspeare can 
never, from the nature of things, come under the 
consideration of any French critic, but in so 
partial a manner as to justify all the faults they 
have found in him. To the most candid and 
informed, be can only appear as a voluminous 
writer of tragedies, many of which contain sub- 
lime poetic conceptions, and admirable descrip- 
tions of the human mind, and of human suffer- 
ings. Of these their admiration must be chiefly 
confined to those dramas, not founded on facts 
in English history, but on legends, which to 
foreigners, unacquainted with the obscure En- 
glish translations of the day, may well pass for 
inventions of the poet, and whose characters, 
therefore, are of more general application. (1) 
In his comedies, They cannot wade through 
confused and improbable plots, and crowds of 
supernumerary characters, to detect the beautiful 
samples of every species of poetry scattered 
through them all. They cannot enter with in- 

(1) See Madame de Stael, L'Allemag?ie } torn. i. p. 2S2. 



191 

terest into the peculiarities of a people, at that 
time in a much less artificial system of society 
than themselves. They cannot, therefore, sepa- 
rate from his great theatrical faults the sublime 
excellencies which place him at the head of poets, 
in the noblest and the most exalted acceptation 
of that name — as a great moral teacher, a pro- 
found master of the human heart and passions, 
possessing powers of imagination capable of 
placing his fellow-creatures in a creation of his 
own, and raising them above the sad realities 
of life. 

Schlegel alone seems penetrated with a just ad- 
miration of the miraculous powers of his genius. 
After an analytical view of his various perfections 
as a dramatic writer, and a candid and sometimes 
a too far-fetched apology for his faults, he thus 
sums up his titles to immortality : " Deja juge au 
" tribunal de la posterite, a celui des nations 
" etrangeres, sa gloire ne peut plus etre obscurcie 
" par le mepris qu'on affecte pour telle epoque, 
" pour tel gout national, pour telle forme de 
" composition. Et en ofFrant a nos regards les 
" traits les plus brillans du caractere des siecles et 
" des peuples divers, la hardiesse de 1'imagination, 
" et la profondeur de la pensee, le don d'emou- 
" voir fortement, et la finesse des apei^us, le culte 
" de la nature, et la connoissance de la societe, 



192 

" Tenthousiasme du poete, et Pimpartialite du 
" philosophe, il paroit fait pour representer a lui 
" seul, l'esprit humain, dont il reunit dans le plus 
" haut degre les qualites les plus opposees." (1) 

It is certain that before the Restoration (be- 
sides the immortal genius of Shakspeare) we 
possessed a cluster of dramatic poets (2), who, 
with strong powers of imagination and con- 
siderable poetic merit, have left behind a host 
of dramas, which, if they do little honour to 
the contemporary taste of the nation, are au- 
thentic records of the original genius and 
vigorous intellect of their authors. 

To this national taste, and to the peculiar 
social habits of the nation, may be fairly attri- 
buted all their faults. For to whom and where 
were these pieces represented ? Xot to an 
informed (or at least polished) audience, of a 
quick versatile nation, but to the lower orders 
of a people naturally slow to move, and requiring 
strong appeals to all the unvarnished feelings 
of human nature, independent of any conven- 
tional modes of society. These pieces were 
not written for, or exhibited at, a court, or 



(1) Schlegel, Cours de Litterature Dramatiqtie, torn. ii. 
p. 408. 

(2) Johnson, Massinger, Shirley, Decker, Rowley, Beau- 
mont and Fletcher, Ford, Webster, Field, and Marlow. 



193 

called into notice by the criticisms of a minister. 
They were first produced at theatres in the 
outskirts of London ; generally in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the retreats of profligacy and 
prostitution, which can leave no doubt of the 
complexion and character of their habitual 
audience. 

While Cardinal Richelieu was endeavouring in 
vain to extend his despotism into the territory of 
genius, and to stifle the good taste which had 
already produced the Cid, and an audience who 
felt and admired its beauties ; the pedantic 
James the First was regaled at Cambridge by a 
long series of bad jokes, in worse Latin, under 
the name of a comedy in five long acts, with 
two still longer prologues, written for the occa- 
sion by an indigenous poet, of the harmonious 
name of Ruggles, and acted by members of the 
university. (1) No wonder that under these 
circumstances the theatre, forming no part of 
the amusement of the upper orders of society, 
and frequented only by the idle, the ignorant, 
and the profligate, should have incurred the 



(1) Ignoramus, acted before James the First on his visit 
to Cambridge in 1627. 

.0 



194 

disgrace and abuse to which its immorality ex- 
posed its genius, with the reformers of the 
ensuing reign. 

Masques representing mythological or allego- 
rical personages, which were common long before 
the times of which w T e are speaking, cannot be 
received as decisive of the merits of the theatre 
of either nation. They had in both succeeded to 
the exhibitions which, under the name of my- 
sterieSy had in all times been patronised by the 
church. They were not representations of hu- 
man life or character, but merely modes of 
adulation to the great, used only on public oc- 
casions, and, being addressed more to the eyes 
than the understanding, were sure of being well 
received. We shall not, therefore, endeavour to 
press into the service of the English theatre one 
of the most exquisitely beautiful poems in our 
language, in which Milton, under the name of a 
Masque, has given proof of the perfection which 
he attained in every mode of poetry which his 
pure and exalted genius deigned to adorn. 

It is not here pretended to pass in critical 
review any of the English dramas previous to 
the Restoration : in many of them will be found 
plots admirably contrived to suspend the mind 
in anxious interest as to the issue of the scenes 



195 

before it(l); forcible displays of the human 
heart, and its sufferings under the influence of 
stormy or unlawful passions ; exquisite descrip- 
tions of female tenderness, its powers and effects, 
and frightful representations of the remorse and 
horror of great criminals. But in the choice of 
their subjects they seem often to have been 
determined only by an excess of crimes and 
cruelties in the conduct of their principal per- 
sonages, without sufficiently considering whether 
the action which calls them forth is dramatic as 
well as natural. To these crimes and cruelties 
they often fail to lend that art and that conceal- 
ment which such conduct must suppose to 
render it possible. They treat of them with all 
the bold simplicity of another era of society, in 
which indeed similar crimes are quite as likely 
to be committed, but have no pretence to being 
dramatic. 

Thus The Unnatural Combat of Massinger 
affects the mind in a quite different, and a much 
more disagreeable manner than Les Freres En- 
nemis of Racine. The French poet has en- 
venomed the hatred of the two brothers by a 

(1) As in The Duke of Milan of Massinger, where, till 
near the end of the last act, no guess can be made at the 
denouement. 

o C Z 



196 

rival passion for the same mistress, which how- 
ever harmonizes their characters in some degree 
with the feelings of the audience c . while the 
English dramatist, in addition to the sufficiently 
disgusting rivalry of the father and son, has su- 
peradded the horrible love of the father for his 
daughter, to make his character more execrable, 
and her situation more irretrievably dreadful ; 
but which in fact leaves him without any claim 
to our sympathy, and her beyond the reach of 
our compassion. 

It is unnecessary to remark on the coarseness 
of expression in our ancient dramatists, because 
the language of society has undergone such a 
change since their day, that it would be some- 
what difficult to ascertain what belonged to the 
phraseology of the times, and what to the bad 
company to which the authors addressed them- 
selves. But their plots are sometimes so es- 
sentially indecent, as to defy any delicacy of 
expression sufficiently to veil them, or any com- 
pany so bad as to admit of their theatrical re- 
presentation. (1) Nor must it be objected, that 
The Unnatural Combat, The Duke o/Gandia, &c. 
are not more improper subjects than Phcedra, 



(1) As The Wife of a Month of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
and many others. 



* 197 

Myrrha, &c. because in these last pieces the 
whole art of the poet is exerted in concealing 
his subject, as in nature such crimes must 
always seek concealment, and betray themselves 
only as the author exhibits them, in their dread- 
ful effects on the moral being and happiness of 
his personages. But our old writers advance in 
licence of language as they advance in licence 
of situation, and shock the ears of their audience 
by making them immediately aware of the 
flagitious company into which they have been 
led. Besides, if (as the author believes) it is 
the province and legitimate end of tragedy to 
elevate as well as to affect the human mind, 
here our dramatists entirely fail. They either 
excite horror and disgust, from which we retire 
with an earnest desire to relieve ourselves as 
soon as possible, or they describe overwhelming 
distress accumulated on the head of some inno- 
cent being, plunged into irremediable crimes, 
which leaves us oppressed with a melancholy, 
and, for the most part, with an exaggerated idea 
of the necessary evils of social existence, and a 
false opinion of the moral government of the 
world. 

It is here, and with reason, that the French 
boast of the conduct and tone of their tragic 
muse; the elevation of her sentiments, the deli- 

o 3 



198 

cacy with which they are always expressed, the 
purity of her morals, and the dignity of her 
tone, always completely separated from that of 
her comic sister. It is true that, for a long time, 
she never spoke but from the mouths of heroes, 
kings, or ministers, and is accused by her English 
detractors of being often, in her long-winded 
tirades, as tedious and as little interesting as those 
illustrious personages have, in subsequent ages, 
sometimes in reality appeared. From the same 
quarter she is likewise accused of always con- 
tenting herself with a recital of the events 
which ought most essentially to interest her, and 
to require her presence ; of sometimes listen- 
ing patiently, while torn by conflicting passions, 
and under the most cruel circumstances, to the 
exposition of the whole plan of an ensuing cam- 
pain, as in Mithridate ; and sometimes to the 
recitation of a sort of gazette extraordinary, con- 
taining its success and casualties, as in the Cid. 

However true these accusations may be, and 
however the French theatre, in times subsequent 
to those of which we are speaking, may have ad- 
vanced nearer towards the truth of what may be 
called theatrical nature, it is certain, that, on our 
theatre, some subsequent attempts to iinbasfxin 
tragedy, and to strip her entirely of the " gor- 
" geous pall," which the pure taste of Milton 



199 

(in spite of his republican severity) required 
for her attire (1), have been completely unsuc- 
cessful. 

Lillo, an author free from all the grossness of 
ideas and of diction which disgraced his pre- 
decessors, and endowed with the truest tragic 
pathos, has left us several dramas, founded on 
catastrophes which had actually taken place 
in private life. (2) One of these, The Fatal 
Curiosity, is a tragedy cited by the classical 
Harris (3) as the model of a perfect tragic 
fable, and the plot, it must be granted, is singu- 
larly and eminently pathetic. 

This piece was revived some years ago on 
Drury-lane theatre, as an essay of this species 
of drama, with every advantage from the judg- 
ment and good taste of the manager ; (4) and, 
although supported by the all-powerful and all- 
accomplished actress who at that time illustrated 
English tragedy, it entirely failed of success. 

The close adherence to individual and un- 
elevated nature, undignified by any previous 



(1) " Or Tragedy in gorgeous robe come sweeping by." 

7/ Penseroso. 

(2) As George Barnetvell, Arden of Feversham, and The 
Fatal Curiosity. 

(3) Harris's Philological Enquiries, vol. i. p. 154. 

(4) The late J. P. Kemble. 

O 4 



200 



distinction, and unaccompanied by any enno- 
bling circumstances ; the poverty necessary to 
be observed in the dresses and the absence of 
all species of decoration from the scene ; al- 
though all strictly natural and obligatory, ac- 
cording to the subject chosen, were in direct 
opposition to dramatic effect, and essentially 
lessened the interest of the piece. The long 
train of ideas, which a sudden reverse in fortune 
or in character excites in the human mind, 
and whicli so powerfully increases the weight 
of misfortune, was precluded. Two miserable- 
looking beings, complaining of want and poverty, 
and resolving to commit a murder to enrich 
themselves, present nothing either to astonish 
or elevate the mind. We cannot participate 
in their degraded feelings, nor can we be- 
lieve that they themselves feel the same horror 
at their meditated crime as Macbeth, a great 
chieftain, a successful general, honoured with 
public applause, and with his sovereign's favour ; 
who is led to commit a crime, which we cannot 
suppose his imagination ever before harboured, 
by a most imposing supernatural agency, and 
by the ambitious character of a beloved wife, 
acting on a dangerous, but not degrading, pas- 
sion for power. Even The Gamester, a story 
that comes home to every bosom, and which is 



c 20l 

likely to occur every day in the circles around 
us, as a drama, wants that previous elevation of 
sentiment and situation which is requisite to 
ennoble our sorrows and the misery of those 
who excite them. Could it be possible for pri- 
vate sufferings, and the herd of griefs unpartici- 
pated by the world, to become the subjects of 
tragedy, tragedy would immediately cease to 
be resorted to as an amusement. What human 
being may not inwardly say, " Too much such 
" sorrow hast thou had already ?" The most 
acutely- feeling minds will, therefore,, always be 
those who require the greatest degree of eleva- 
tion of sentiment, in fictitious calls on their sym- 
pathy. The excesses to which the German theatre 
has been led by this homely species of drama 
are irrelevant to our subject. But let it be 
remarked, that the ridicule stamped by an inimit- 
able English parody( 1 )on the morals and the taste 
of these pieces, has preserved our own theatre 
from the lamentable fate which for a moment 
impended over it, of reproducing all their faults 
in English translations. 

The Restoration, which gave us back our 
national theatre, gave us back an audience ac- 



(1) The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement, published in 
the Anti-Jacobin. 



202 

customed to the theatres of France ; no wonder, 
then, that " unhappy Dryden," and indeed " all 
" the wits of Charles's days," took the shortest 
road to theatrical success, by translating or by 
imitating the dramas of France. It was a much 
less tedious and less laborious task than pruning 
the luxuriance of those of our native growth, so 
as to render them admissible in the more cultiva- 
ted and more artificial soil where they were re- 
quired. Hence arose a mongrel race of tragedies, 
which combined the faults of both their parents. 
Hence, Shakspeare himself lay for a time neg- 
lected under a mass of writers, whose names 
are only known to the unerring judgment of 
posterity by the satire of Dryden. Hence, the 
bombast into which that great genius was him- 
self often betrayed, while we know how much, as 
a critic, he condemned his own practice as a 
dramatist. In his admirable Essay on Dramatic 
Poetry he proves himself to be perfectly aware 
of all the faults of the French theatre ; and if he 
speaks with too much partiality of those of our 
own, and adopts upon some points popular mis- 
takes, he has sealed for ever the proof of his 
good taste, in opposition to that of the day, by 
his animated praises of Shakspeare, and by the 
apologies he thinks necessary for bestowing them. 
Lord Lansdowne, his contemporary, in his 



208 

" Essay on unnatural Flights in Poetry," ex- 
presses the same opinion of Dryden's taste, and 
of the causes which he allowed to misguide al- 
though not to deceive it. 

" Our king return 'd, and banish'd peace restored, 
" The Muse went mad to see her exiled lord ; 
" On the crack'd stage the bedlam heroes roar'd, 
" And scarce could speak one reasonable word. 
" Dryden himself, to please a frantic age, 
" Was forced to let his judgment stoop to rage ; 
" To a wild audience he conform'd his voice, 
" Complied to custom, but not err'd by choice : 
" Deem then the people's, not the writer's sin, 
" Almanzor's rage, and rants of Maximin." 

The priority of the English theatre in le- 
gitimate comedy we may assume from, the 
works of Ben Jonson, who died the same year 
that gave the Visionnaires of Desmarets to 
the French stage. But the characters of Ben 
Jonson are too much individualized to be of 
general interest. The peculiarities and follies of 
many of his personages are as much out of date 
as the cut of their doublet and hose. They are 
portraits, still interesting to his countrymen, from 
preserving the dress and colour of the times; but 
their entirely local tints diminish their excellence 
as faithful transcripts of human nature. His 
pieces, therefore, have most of them become ob- 
solete, without having been popular. 



204 



Could Comedy ever be supposed faithfully 
" to hold the mirror up to nature," we might 
blush at belonging to the nature which her 
English mirror reflected in the w r orks of the 
" mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease" im- 
mediately after the Restoration. They outrage 
decency as well as morality, both in the dialogue 
and in the conduct of their pieces, and describe 
manners which could never have existed, except 
in the purlieus of their own theatre. But 
comedy we know can only be implicitly trusted 
as a recorder of the excesses of a metropolis, 
and of the fashionable follies and peculiarities of 
its inhabitants ; and certainly the highly-coloured 
and coarse sketches which she gave of those of 
London at this period, bear no favourable com- 
parison with similar representations in France. 

Already had the incomparable Moliere en- 
throned the comic muse on the French theatre. 
His satire was directed against the follies, not of 
a metropolis, but of human nature ; his portraits 
exhibited whole classes of individuals ; and he 
seized the ridicules of the age, as well as those 
of his own particular country. His wit, his 
wisdom, and his gaiety, were the produce of 
France, but became the property of all Europe. 
It is a property which has since been so bor- 
rowed from, and pillaged, that when we now 



205 

see the frequently-stolen goods in the hands 
of their original owner, they have lost the 
charm of surprise and the merit of novelty. But 
so long as misers and misanthropes, false saints 
and affected women, silly husbands and ignorant 
physicians exist in the world, so long will Mo- 
liere remain their unrivalled painter, historian, 
and satirist. 



206 



CHAPTER V. 



INFLUENCE OF THE FIRST YEARS OF THE .MAJORITY OF 
LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH ON THE SOCIETY AND SOCIAL 

HABITS OF FRANCE. ST. EVREMOND. DUCHESSE DE 

MAZARIN. NINON DE l'eNCLOS. HOTEL DE RAM- 

BOUILLET. FETES AT VERSAILLES. CHANGE WHICH 

TOOK PLACE DURING THE REIGN OF LOUIS. STATE 

OF SOCIETY AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH. 

" Au commencement du dix-septieme siecle, il 
" n'y avoit point cinquante carrosses a Paris : 
" dans le regne de Louis Quatorze tout le monde 
" en avoit, on ne pouvoitallera la cour autrement. 
11 On ne fut plus recu sur les mules ; l'usage 
" fut laisse a quelques conseillers au parlement, 
" et cessoit pour eux et pour toujours vers 
" le milieu du regne de Louis Quatorze." 
(Mem. du Due de Richelieu, torn. i. p. 192.) 

The adoption of this general use of wheel 
carriages produced a greater change in the habits 
of social life, and had more influence on the 
political state of the country, than may be at 
first supposed. We have been so long ac- 
customed to their use, that the habits of a coun- 



207 

try, or the life of a great metropolis without 
them, does not immediately present itself to 
our imagination. The state of public roads, 
which the necessity of travelling on horseback 
supposes, must immediately influence all military 
movements and all communication of intelli- 
gence, must triple the expence of all commercial 
transfers, and prevent, or render difficult, all 
merely social meetings, except between the 
nearest neighbours. 

When Laporte, the valet-de-chambre to Anne 
of Austria, tells us, that in the winter of the 
year 1636, between Piteaux and Paris, on the 
route of Orleans, the road was so bad, that the 
Queen was obliged to sleep in her carriage, be- 
cause neither the mules nor carts that carried 
her baggage could possibly arrive (1), we 
may conceive how little winter travelling there 
could have been in France. Although coaches 
were already known and used in Paris, they 
were so unlike the modern vehicles of the same 
name, that the pleasures, engagements, and as- 
signations of the young men were still pursued 
on horseback. The trick which the Comte de 
Grammont boasts of having played to his friend 
the Due de Brissac, at the door of Marion de 

(1) Memoires de la Porte, p. 114. 



208 

L'Orme (1), could only have taken place be- 
tween cavaliers ; and the occupation de garder 
les manteaux could never have passed into an 
insulting bye- word, had well-lined modern car- 
riages been the conveyance of the day. A 
printed paper is yet extant in the King's library 
at Paris, announcing in all its details to the 
public, the establishment by government of porte 
, flambeaux and porte lanternes ; persons provided 
with them were to be posted at the Louvre, the 
Palais de Justice in the Carrefours, and other 
public places at Paris. These extempore illumin- 
ations must have been very necessary in the 
streets of a great town, still frequented by horse- 
men, where no aid of light was derived, either 
from the doors of private houses or the windows 
of shops ; the habitual darkness only made 
more visible from the occasional flambeaux car- 
ried before some persons of distinction by their 
own servants, or accompanying their coach. 

This establishment of porte flambeaux \ which 
was to take place in October 1662, is announced 
with all the forms of a long preamble, and sur- 
rounded with all the exclusive privileges which 
could have accompanied the most important 
measure of internal government. It is a curious 

(1) See Memoires de Grammont. 



209 

example of the minute details into which the 
hierarchy of despotic power had already entered 
in France. It calls itself, " l'etablissement de 
" porte flambeaux, et porte lanternes, a louage 
" dans la ville et fauxbourgs de Paris, et toutes 
" autres villes du royaume, par lettres patentes 
" du roi, verifiees au parlement, et reglement 
" fait par la dite cour, des salaries des dits 
" porte flambeaux et porte lanternes," Then 
follow the orders, which forbid any body from 
becoming a porte Jlambeaux, or a porte lanterne, 
without an express permission from the indi- 
vidual who has obtained this privilege from the 
King, to the exclusion of all others, under pain 
of a thousand francs penalty. The price is fixed 
for the hire of a porte lanterne at " 3 sous par 
" ^ d'heure pour les gens qui vont a pied, et 
" pour les gens qui vont en carrosses et en 
" chaise, 5 sous j" and the public are then as- 
sured, " que cette commodite de pouvoir aller 
" et venir, et d'etre eclaire a si peu de frais, fera 
" que les gens d'affaires et de negoce sortiront 
" plus librement; que les rues en seront bien 
" plus frequentees la nuit, ce qui contribuera 
" beaucoup a exempter la ville de Paris de 
" voleurs." 

To nightly depredators the darkness of the 
streets must have been very favourable. Thus 

p 



210 

we see Boileau makes one of the torments of a 
town life, the dread of thieves : 

" Que dans le marche neuf tout est calrae et tranquille, 

" Les voleurs a l'instant s'emparent de la ville, 

" Le bois le plus funeste, et le moins frequente, 

" Est, au prix de Paris, un lieu de surete. 

" Malheur done a celui, qu'une affaire imprevue 

" Engage un peu tard au detour d'une rue, 

" Bientot quatre bandits lui serrant les cotes 

" La bourse, il faut se rendre,'' &c. &c. 

Boileau, Sat. 6. 

In the former regency of Mary of Medicis the 
streets of Paris had been subject to the still 
greater dangers of frequent and fatal rencontres 
between the rival princes and nobility, over whom 
the court had so little the power of control, that 
the fair of St. Germains was put off in the year 
1612, to avoid the occasions it might give for re- 
newing such quarrels, by the great concourse of 
disorderly people ; and the parliament, at the 
Queen's desire, made an arret to authorize the 
citizens taking arms, and laying down chains 
against any drawing of swords in the streets. 
Win wood's Letters, who writes from Paris in the 
year 1612, are full of accounts of such outrages. 
" There was yesterday a bloody quarrel fought 
" in this town near the Place R ovale, upon a 
" sudden occasion of the beating of some lakeys 



211 

" (laquais) by certain gentlemen, between whom 
" and the lakeys' masters there grew such hot 
" partakings, as that 4 gentlemen and 3 lakeys 
" were left dead on the place. 5 ' (Winwood's 
Letters, vol.iii. p. 352.) 

" The Prince of Conti's and the Comte de 
" Soissons's coaches meeting in a narrow place 
" near the Louvre, by the bad driving of their 
" coachmen jostled against each other, and came 
" to blows between their followers, who de- 
" parting in that fashion one from another, did, 
" against the next morning, call and assemble 
" together such numbers of their friends and fol- 
" lowers, as that the Duke of Guise joyning 
" with his brother-in-law, the Prince of Conti, 
" and the Prince of Conde with the Comte de 
11 Soissons his uncle, they came out into the 
" streets with at least 3 or 400 horse a piece. 
«##*## >phe cna i ns have been set up all 
" night in many streets, and corps de gardes 
" kept near the town-houses." ( Winwood, vol. iii. 
p. 247.) 

" There do daily break forth new quarrels 
" between the nobility in this town, who are 
w here in greater numbers than usually have 
" been heretofore, whereof one, being between 
" Mr. d'Andelot and Mr. Balagny, was presently 
" taken up ; and another fell out the other day 

p 2 



212 

" between the Colonel d'Ornano and one Mr. 
" St. Andre, who, fighting in the streets, were 
" both hurt, and to avoid the mischief that 
" might ensue from partakings, the gates of the 
" town were for a time shut up." (Winwood, 
vol. iii. p. 324.) 

How long the monopoly of porte lanternes 
continued a profitable concern, we know not ; 
but at the end of the reign of Louis the Four- 
teenth, the luxury of carriages was so uni- 
versal (1), that riding among the young men was 
confined entirely to the manege, to hunting, and 
to their military life. A change of dress had 
indeed necessitated a change in their mode of 
conveyance. The military costume was no 
longer that of the court ; their boots and cloaks 
had disappeared, except when with their regi- 
ments ; and the knots of ribbons, the short 
sleeves, the long ruffles, the lace, fringe and em- 
broidery, and the flowing periwigs now general, 
were perfectly incompatible with an evening 



(1) At the death of Louis the Fourteenth there were sup- 
posed to be 300 carriages to be hired (voiturcs de remise) at 
Paris. The Regent Duke of Orleans in 1716 had allowed 
a grant of a livre a day on each of these carriages, to be 
levied in favour of the Dues d'Aumont and d'Antin. But 
the gift was considered as so invidious, that he was obliged 
to revoke it. See le Montey, p. 276. 



213 



ride from the Louvre to the Marais. This dress 
was soon carried to such excess, as to be a 
legitimate object of ridicule on their theatre. 
Moliere's two marquises in Les Precieuses Ridi- 
cules were caricatures of it ; and the account 
given of it by Geroute is said to have been a 
portrait of the appearance of the Due de Can- 
dale, the fine gentleman of that day. (1) 

From this dress, its inaptness to all manly ex- 
ercises, and the effeminate manners which were 
supposed to accompany it, first crept in those 



(1) Louis Charles Gaston de Candale de Foix, son of 
Bernard Due d'Epernon by Gabrielle Angelique, a legi- 
timated natural daughter of Henry the Fourth. 

Another detailed account of the excesses of the fashion^ 
able dress of the times is given by Sganarelle in the Ecole 
des Maris* He asks, what shall ever oblige him — 



" a porter de ces petits chapeaux, 



" Qui laissent eVenter leur debiles cerveaux, 
" Et de ces blonds cheveux, de qui la vaste enflure 
l< Des visages humains offusque la figure ? 
" De ces petits pourpoints sous le bras se perdant, 
" Et de ces grands collets jusqu'au nombril pendants ; 
" De ces manches qui a table on voit tater les sausses, 
" Et de ces cotillons appellees haut-de-chausses; 
" De ces souliers mignons, de rubans revetus, 
" Qui vous font ressembler a des pigeons pattus ; 
" Et de ces grands canons, oil, comme en des entraves, 
" On met le matin ses deux jambes esclaves, 
" Et par qui nous voyons, ces messieurs les galans 
" Marcher £carquilles ainsi que des volants ?" 
P 3 



214 

false and ridiculous ideas which so long dictated 
all subsequent representations of French charac- 
ters on our theatre ; where a Frenchman (al- 
ways dubbed a marquis) was represented with 
a powdered toupee, a hat under his arm, 
showy clothes, and a snuff-box in his hand. 

The expence of dress to the young men 
was often ruinous. Rich attire and magnifi- 
cence of costume was a privilege of the pri- 
vileged ; it could not be attempted by the 
lower orders; and such importance was at- 
tached to it, that not only minute descrip- 
tions of dress are often given in the memoirs 
of the times, but likewise in grave official re- 
ports. Thus the dress of Mary of Medicis, 
on the opening of the States General in 
1614, is minutely detailed in the Ceremonial 
Franqois, torn. ii. p. 269. And on the entry of 
Louis the Fourteenth into Paris after his mar- 
riage in 1660, the greffier of the parliament of 
Paris in his proces verbal reports exactly the 
dress of the King on that occasion. Louis the 
Fourteenth, both from taste and policy, en- 
couraged great expence in dress, and in a cos- 
tume peculiar to his court. He, too, first 
imagined an uniform for the particularly favoured 
of his society, as a still farther distinction, de- 
pending entirely on himself. Les Justaucorps 



215 

Mens, Voltaire says, were almost as eagerly- 
sought after as le cordon bleu, and with some 
reason, as the one was a probable step to the 
other. (1) As a further means of crushing every 
remains of independence in the aristocracy, he 
insisted on the title and rank of marechal (be- 
cause military, and entirely depending on him- 
self) taking place of that of Due et Pair, and 
always called those who were marechals, Mr. le 
Marechal, and never by their hereditary titles. 
In like manner he decided a question of prece- 
dence in voting, between the peers and the pre- 
sidents of the parliament, by declaring the peers 
only to vote first at the lits de justice where him- 
self was present, as if their rank proceeded from 
him alone. 

The Marquis de Vardes, when he returned to 
court, after an exile of twenty years, in a 
justaucorps bleu, then no longer the livery of 
favour, with some difficulty turned off the laugh 
which his appearance excited by telling the King, 
" Quand on avoit le malheur de lui deplaire, on 
" etoit non-seulement malheureux, mais ridi- 
cule." 

(1) There was a regular warrant (brevet) granted for per- 
mission to wear these justaucorps. One of these brevets is 
preserved in the works of Louis the Fourteenth, vol. vi. 
p. 375. 

P 4 



216 



It were well if the dress of Louis the Four- 
teenth's court had continued peculiar to it. The 
portraits of the day sufficiently inform us how 
incompatible it was with grace and beauty; 
while the Spanish cloak, broad falling down 
collar, or small ruff, which had immediately pre- 
ceded it, are still resorted to in painting, to 
get rid of the altered remains of the dress which 
immediately followed, and which soon became 
general in Europe. This change, however un- 
lucky for the lovers of the picturesque, is per- 
haps one of the least essential which the reign of 
Louis the Fourteenth produced, not only on the 
manners, but the character of his country. All 
independence of feeling, all individual consider- 
ation and power, all personal dignity of senti- 
ment were crushed under the imposing glitter 
with which a young, handsome, showy monarch 
began in fetes and tournaments, and continued 
in ill-judged, but successful wars, to disguise 
the sceptre of arbitrary power, which the follies 
of the Fronde had left undisputed in his hands. 

However various the paths to distinction, 
honour, and fame, and however various the deci- 
sions of men in their choice, it will invariably 
be found, that success attends only those whose 
character happens to suit the age in which they 
appear, and the circumstances and situation in 



21? 

which they are called into action. No abilities, 
however distinguished, without this adventitious 
aid ever rose above their natural level, or even 
attained the success they deserved. Individual 
happiness yet more surely depends on the same 
causes. In the lottery of human life we are 
sometimes tempted to think that if the tickets 
were distributed, as the Due de Mazarin is said 
to have drawn lots for the services of the different 
members of his household, lucky changes might 
often be made which would benefit and relieve 
both parties. 

Thus Louis the Sixteenth would probably have 
been honourably distinguished as a college pre- 
ceptor, and his unfortunate Queen as an amiable 
and fascinating individual, in the best society 
of her capital ; Charles the First might have 
served as the model of a well-educated English 
gentleman of his day ; and Queen Anne as an 
appropriate wife to a country Tory clergy- 
man. 

Louis the Fourteenth was as peculiarly for- 
tunate in the age and circumstances in which he 
lived, as in the people over whom he was called 
to reign. The foibles of his character were the 
foibles of theirs ; both his faults and merits were 
essentially national. His two first manifestations 
of power towards his neighbours would, in the 



218 

sovereign of any other nation, have been as ill- 
judged as they were unjust (1) But every 



(1) At the public entry of a Swedish minister into London 
in the year 1661, the Comte d'Estrades, the French am- 
bassador, with a numerous suite, came to a positive engage- 
ment in the streets of London with the Baron de Watteville, 
the Spanish ambassador, for precedence. If, as Voltaire says, 
(Steele de Louis Quatorze, torn. i. p. 297.) the Spaniards 
killed the horses in the French carriages, and then marched 
" l'epee nue, comme en triomphe," it was Charles the Se- 
cond, in whose metropolis, at a peaceful ceremony, such an 
outrage had taken place, who ought to have demanded sa- 
tisfaction. But Louis immediately recalled his ambassador 
from Spain, sent away the Spanish ambassador from Paris, 
and declared if Philip the Fourth (his father-in-law) 
did not publicly recognize the priority of the crown of 
France in all ceremonies, he should immediately declare 
war. The year after (1662) the insolence of the Due de 
Crequi, his ambassador at Rome, and the intolerable licence 
of his servants and suite, who had attacked sword in hand a 
party of the Pope's * guards in the streets of Rome, at last 
roused the Romans to reprisals, and a party of the same 
troops, thus offended, surrounded the house of the ambas- 
sador, and fired on his servants. On this occasion, instead 
of the mutual apologies due from both parties, but more 
especially from the first aggressor — the King — the eldest 
son of the church, not content with the Pope's hanging two 
of the offenders, and banishing the Governor of Rome, who 
was supposed to have connived at punishing the insolence 
of the French, immediately seized Avignon, and threatened 
to besiege Rome, till the Pope had not only banished his 
brother, and sent his nephew to apologize to Louis at 

* Alexander the Seventh (Chigi). 



219 

Frenchman in authority would have been happy 
to have done the same, and was delighted with 
his King for doing it for him. Under these 
circumstances, the personal character of the 
monarch became the established principle of his 
government, and his personal favour the para- 
mount object, even of those whose disposition 
and talents, in other times, or in a differently- 
constituted government, would have made them 
the most independent of it. Fashion ranged 
herself on the side of power ; against their 
united authority no abilities could compensate, 
no services excuse the slightest offence ; while 
credit seems to have been given them for not 
always visiting the objects of their displeasure 
with the severe dispensations of Richelieu. 

The Marquis de Vardes, exiled for a forgery 
which ought to have turned him out of all good 
company, without the necessity of banishing 
him from court, and Bussy Rabutin, whose 
caustic and slanderous pen no punishment could 
repress, and whose vanity no mortification could 
subdue, exiled to their own estates, extolled the 



Paris, but erected a pillar at Rome (long since destroyed) 
to commemorate the insolence of the French to a govern- 
ment from whose weakness they had nothing to dread, and 
whose honour they ought to have respected. 



220 



mildness of a monarch who had not, like his 
predecessor, retained them in the Bastille for 
much slighter offences. (1) And here the change 
in independence of character and sentiment is 
remarkable. The cruel imprisonments of the 
former reign met sometimes with characters who, 
while suffering, resisted and finally overcame 
their tormentors. The Commandeur de Jars, 
sent to the Bastille by Richelieu as suspected of 
having some concern in the intrigues of Cha- 
teauneuf, the Garde des Sceaux, was not only 
condemned to death and led to the scaffold, but 
actually had his eyes bound to receive the stroke, 
when, finding all attempts were vain to make 
him speak, he was released, and restored to the 
world and to the court. The Marquis de Chau- 



(1) " Le Comte de Cremail fut mis a la Bastille pour 
" avoir averti le Roi Louis Treize, quand il etoit en Lor- 
" raine, que sa personne n etoit pas en surete, I'annee des 
" Lorraines etant plus forte que la sienne. Le Cardinal (de 
" Richelieu) l'a fait mettre en prison pour avoir donne de 
" V apprehension an Roi, quoiqu'elie fut juste et raisonnable." 

" M. de Gouille tres-bien fait, qui avoit etc Sieve" page, 
" fut mis a la Bastille par Tadresse dune celebre fille de 
" joye qu'il entretenoit. Comme il la maltraitoit quel- 
" quefois pour ses inconstances, et que sa bravoure efta- 
" rouchoit les autres galans, elle s'ennuyoit. et pour Be 
M debarrasser de son amant, elle ecrivoit au Cardinal qu'elle 
cl lui avoit ou'i-dire, qui! nc mouriroit jamais que de sa 
mam" See La Porte's Memoires. 



221 

denier was imprisoned in the Chateau de Loches 
for two years, reduced to the bread and food of 
the common prisoners, and afterwards kept in 
exile for seven or eight years, without prevailing 
on him to give in his resignation of captain of 
the guards to Anne of Austria, when her ca- 
price, or that of Mazarin, insisted on his selling 
his commission, that they might bestow it on 
some other person. Madame de Sevigne and 
Bussy Rabutin both speak of his conduct as a 
great folly ; and so it was. But what was the 
government that made it so ? St. Evremond, 
who partook of the sentiments and character 
of the same period, had made a visit of three 
months to the Bastille, by the order of Cardinal 
Mazarin, for some jests at a dinner, which not 
daring to notice in the Due de Candale, his 
vengeance fell on his companion. At the con- 
ferences on the peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, 
at which St. Evremond was present, he wrote 
an account of what was passing to his intimate 
friend, the Marechal de Crequi. A copy of 
this letter was found in a box of papers de- 
posited by St. Evremond with Madame du Plessis 
Bellievre (the friend of Fouquet as well as of 
himself), when St. Evremond accompanied the 
Comte de Soissons on his complimentary em- 
bassy to England at the Restoration. On Fou- 



222 



quet's imprisonment, St. EvremoncTs papers 
were seized with those of their mutual friends, 
and this letter — * this ex post facto satire on a 
dead cardinal and a ratified peace, was repre- 
sented in such odious colours to Louis the 
Fourteenth by le Tellier and Colbert, that 
St. Evremond, aware of the unfavourable im- 
pression already existing against him, and afraid 
of a second visit to the Bastille, deemed it pru- 
dent to retire, first into his native province of 
Normandy, and then into Holland, from whence 
he repassed into England early in the year 1662. 
From England he made many vain attempts to 
be restored with impunity to his own country, 
and to take some active part in its affairs. Born 
of a good family in Normandy, one of six sons, 
his father had destined him for the law, and 
educated him accordingly at the College de 
Clermont at Paris ; but at sixteen he entered the 
army, and was early distinguished by the Grand 
Conde, his contemporary, not more for his bra- 
very than for his information, and for his talents 
in society. To Conde he soon attached his 
fortunes, was severely wounded at the affair 
of Nortlingen, under his command, and was 
afterwards sent by him to Mazarin to obtain the 
minister's consent to his future plan of campaign. 
His dismissal soon after from the lieutenancy 



223 



of Conde's guards does no honour to the prince. 
It would seem that he could not bear to sup- 
pose, that the keen observation of the ridicules 
of others, which had so often amused him in his 
companion, should ever be exerted in the ob- 
servation of his own. 

In the civil war which immediately afterwards 
ensued, St. Evremond was made a marechal de 
camp in the King's army, and served in Guyenne 
under the command of the Due de Candale. In 
the account which he gives of his military career 
we learn a curious fact, as to the constitution 
and the manner of payment of the army (even 
that of the King), during the regency of Anne of 
Austria. The officers were paid by assignments 
on the towns or communities occupied by their 
troops. By virtue of this assignment they took 
all they could get; and St. Evremond owns that 
during the two years and a half that he served 
in Guyenne, he brought back fifty thousand 
francs, " tout frais Jait." (1) Such an army 
must have been hardly less terrible to its friends 
than its enemies. 

During St. Evremond's first residence in 



(1) Two thousand pounds sterling. See St. Evremond's 
works. 



224 

England, the ill success of all his attempts to 
re-establish himself in his own country threw 
him into such a state of melancholy and ill health, 
that in the year 1665, when the plague first be- 
gan to manifest itself in London, he returned to 
Holland to try the effects of a change of air. — 
Here began that acquaintance with the Prince 
of Orange, which afterwards secured to him the 
friendship and protection of King William the 
Third, from whom he long received the pension 
of 300/. a year, which had been given him by 
Charles the Second. Few of the pensions be- 
stowed by Charles were more honourable to his 
character and good taste than this to St. Evre- 
mond. 

By the intervention of Sir William Temple, 
his minister at the Hague, he had invited St. 
Evremond back to England in the year 1670, 
and the delicate manner in which he secured to 
him the means of living there, relieved his pen- 
sioner from the unpleasant sentiment of receiv- 
ing a salary from a foreign sovereign without 
either services received, or duties attached to it. 
Some little islands, forming a decoy for wild fowl, 
which have long since disappeared, in a canal in 
St. James's Park, which has long since under- 
gone an entire alteration, were constituted by 
the King into a government, and St. Evremond, 



by a regular commission, made governor of these 
" Duck Islands" with a salary of 300/. a year. 
This finally attached him to the court of Charles 
the Second, and, together with some little patri- 
mony which he still possessed in France, gave 
him a sufficiency to indulge in the literary 
leisure in which he had taken refuge, when no 
longer allowed a part in more active occupa- 
tions. His writings leave a very favourable im- 
pression of his mind and character, and, above 
all, of the charms of his society. His clas- 
sical knowledge and general reading were un- 
common for a man of the world in those days ; 
and his knowledge of that world, his intimate 
acquaintance with most of the principal actors in 
it, and the active situations in which he himself 
had been placed, were still more uncommon in a 
man of letters. The leisure and the privations 
of his exile had forced him to the cultivation of 
his literary talents, and kept his Epicurean phi- 
losophy within the bounds of good order, which 
perhaps might not have been the case in pros- 
perity, and in the country and the society to 
which he naturally belonged. His misfortunes 
seem to have enabled him to unite the qualities 
which he himself describes with such approba- 
tion : " II n'y a pas de meilleur commerce qu'un 
Anglois qui parle, et qu'un Francis qui pense." 

Q 



226 



His society and conversation must have been as 
varied as they were agreeable ; for the same man 
who had been a favourite companion of Charles 
the Second, was so pleasing to King William, 
that he was always named by him as one of the 
company when that King dined in any private 
house. 

His works are much less read than they de- 
serve, because most of them are addressed 
more to the society for which they were writ- 
ten than to the world, and are rather the lively 
observations of a man of letters than an inves- 
tigation of the subject which he treats. His 
verses were all occasional, all called forth by 
some momentary impulse ; but instead of the 
tameness and insipidity common to such pro- 
ductions, they mark in a peculiar manner the 
keen observation of character and of ridicule for 
which he was always distinguished, and have 
the charm of well-painted old portraits, of whose 
exact resemblance it is impossible to feel a 
doubt. (1) By his numerous letters and verses 
to Madame de Mazarin, although all in adula- 
tory terms, we are admitted for the moment 



(1) See his " Dialogue entre le Vicillard et la Mort,'' 
torn. iii. p. 115. ; his " Sce?ie de Bassette,'' and several other 
nieces. 



227 

into her society, and learn to pity the man, 
however sincerely attached to her, who was 
constantly exposed to her peculiarities, her 
weaknesses, and her violence. 

Hortense Mancini, this spoiled child of fortune, 
after her wanderings in Italy, and her residence 
at Chamberry, had come to England five or six 
years after St. Evremond. Her pretext was a 
visit to the second wife of the Duke of York, 
who was by birth her cousin german. (1) The 
account she has given of her own life leaves us 
no doubt as to her character or her conduct. 
The eccentricities and the mad bigotry of her 
husband seem in some degree to have excused 
both, without justifying either. Although her 
uncle the Cardinal had made her the greatest 
heiress in Europe, the husband he had chosen 
for her complained bitterly (as Madame de 
Sevigne tells us) that Louis the Fourteenth had 
obliged him to allow her a thousand a year, and 
to give her five hundred pounds on her first 
separation from him, and her journey to Italy. 
So little were these means adequate to the ex- 
travagant habits in which she had been brought 



(1) Mary of Modena, the second wife of the Duke of 
York, was niece to Cardinal Mazarin, daughter of his sister 
Martinozzi, 

Q 2 



228 

up, that a pension of four thousand pounds a 
year, allowed her by Charles the Second on her 
coming to England, never prevented her being 
overwhelmed with debts. On her arrival in 
I676, the King had lodged her within the 
precincts of Whitehall, and she was considered 
for a time to have occupied his vagrant heart 
during the interregnum between the Duchesses 
of Cleveland and Portsmouth. Evelyn, we see, 
talks of her as the King's mistress, and Madame 
de Sevigne says of her, " Madame de Mazarin 
" court les champs de son cote, on la croit en 
" Angleterre, ou il n'y a, comme vous savez, ni 
u foi, ni loi, ni pretre ; mais je crois qu'elle ne 
" voudroit pas, comme dit le chanson, qu'ofi cut 
" chasse le Roi" 

Her house was soon the resort of all the 
foreigners then in England, and was one of the 
first where play took place regularly, as the 
entertainment of the evening. St. Evremond 
became immediately one of her most devoted 
admirers, and spent his life in her society. It 
is easy to imagine the resource it must have 
been to him, long deprived of the enjoyment of 
his native language, his early habits of society, 
and all the little details of social life, to which 
a residence in a foreign country often attaches 
with peculiar fondness. 



229 

His partiality for her became such, that we 
can by no means trust the following descrip- 
tion : " Madame de Mazarin," he says, " n'est 
" pas plutot arrivee en quelque lieu, qu'elle 
" y etablit une maison qui fait abandonner toutes 
" les autres. On y trouve la plus grande liberte 
" du monde, on y vit avec une egale discretion. 
" Chacun y est plus commodement que chez soi, 
" et plus respectueusement qu'a la cour. II est 
" vrai qu'on dispute quelquefois, mais c'est avec 
" plus de lumiere que de chaleur. C'est moins 
" pour contredire les personnes, que pour eclair- 
" cir les matieres ; plus pour animer les conversa- 
" tions, que pour aigrir les esprits. Le jeu qu'on 
" y joue est peu considerable, et le seul divertisse- 
" ment y fait jouir. Vous n'y voyez sur les visages 
" ni la crainte de perdre, ni la douleur d' avoir 
" perdu. Le desinteressement va si loin en 
" quelqu'uns, qu'on leur reproche de se rejouir 
" de leur perte, et de s'affliger de leur gain. Le 
" jeu est suivi des meilleurs repas qu'on puisse 
<« faire. On y voit tout ce qui vient de France 
" pour les delicats, tout ce qui vient des Indes 
" pour les curieux, et les mets communs de- 
" viennent rares par le gout exquis qu'on leur 
" donne." — St. Evremond, torn. iv. p. 238. 

The gaming which he here talks of as a mere 
amusement was in fact the passion and occupa- 
tion of her life, against which St. Evremond exerts 

Q 3 



2S0 

himself with all the ingenuous perseverance of 
real friendship. He attacks this pernicious pro- 
pensity both in verse and in prose, both with wit 
and with reason ; and his earnest desire to banish 
its excesses from the society in which he passed 
his life, has dictated many of his best occasional 
verses. In some he describes, with characteristic 
accuracy, the Basset players, who now filled her 
house every evening. In others he celebrates 
the charms of her parties, when otherwise con- 
stituted, and when the company of men of wit 
and letters admitted of literary conversation. 

" Que sert a ces messieurs leur illustre science ? 
" A peine leur fait-on la simple reverence ; 
" Et les pauvres savans, interdits et confus, 
" Regardent Mazarin, et ne la connoit plus. 
" Tout se change ici has, a la fin tout se passe, 
" Les livres de Bassette ont des autres la place ; 
" Plutarque est suspendu, Don Quichotte interdit, 
" Montaigne aupres de vous a perdu son credit, 
" Racine vous deplait, Patru vous importune, 
" Et le bon La Fontaine a la nieme fortune.' 

St. Evremond, torn. iv. p. 112. 

But the mild philosophy of St. Evremond 
made as little impression on the mind as his 
steady attachment on the heart of Madame de 
Mazarin. Her character, naturally violent, un- 
restrained by any principle, uncorrected by any 
education, was steady to nothing but the indul- 
gence of her own passions, caprices, and whims. 



231 

While overwhelmed with debts which they prin- 
cipally occasioned, she seems to have continued 
as wantonly lavish in the expenditure of money as 
when, she herself tells us, that with her sisters she 
amused herself by throwing handsful of their uncle 
the Cardinal's ill-gotten wealth out of the win- 
dows of the Palais Royal, to thepopulacebelow.(l) 

The latter part of such a life may be anticipated, 
although she lived not beyond the age of 53. 
She had been more than once indebted to the 
economy of St. Evremond for the means of sup- 
plying her immediate wants. She died in a small 
house at Chelsea, where her body was detained 
by her numerous and importunate creditors, and 
not allowed to be transported to France, till an 
assurance was given by her son, that all their de- 
mands should be satisfied. 

" Madame Mazarin's body is not yet gone 
" from a little house, which she rented of him 
" (Lord Cheney) at Chelsea; but there have been 
" many creditors at it to claim debts, which they 
" say her son writ to my Lord Feversham, to take 



(1) " Un jour entr'autres que nous n'avions de meilleur 
" passe-tems, nous jettames plus de trois cent Louis par 
" les fenetres du Palais Mazarin, pour avoir le plaisir de 
" faire battre un peuple de valets qui etoit dans la cour." 
Memoir es de la Duchesse de Mazarin, CEuvres de St. Real, 
torn. vi. p. 23. 

Q 4 



232 

" care about her body for Gravesend, till he re- 
" turned home to the Duke of Mazarin, who he 
" had no doubt would satisfy all, and give 
" directions for her funeral." (1) 

St. Evremond did not survive the friend he so 
devotedly admired above four years. Her loss 
must have been severely felt by him. Habits of 
life and society of twenty years' standing could 
at his age neither be altered nor supplied. Such 
were with him their force, that he had before 
declined accepting the tardy permission he had 
at last received to return to France. That any 
government should have obstinately prolonged 

(1) Extract of a Letter from Gertrude Pierpoint, Mar- 
chioness of Hah/ax, to her Lord, 28th June, 1699. Dev. M SS. 
The Due de Mazarin, who long survived her, had her body 
embalmed, and, instead of burying, always carried along 
with him the remains of the person who alive could never 
endure him. The fate of Madame de Mazarin and her 
sisters seems as little what might have been expected 
after their deaths as during their lives. Mary Mancini, the 
Constabless Colonna, the admired of Louis the Fourteenth, 
who had almost been Queen of France, and who was married 
so illustriously in Italy, is buried in a small insignificant 
church at Pisa (La Madonna della Spina, where a large 
flat stone in the pavement says only, " Marice Mancini 
" pulvis ct ossa." In an inscription at the bottom of the 
same stone, her son the Cardinal Colonna tells us, that, bv 
his mothers express injunction, no other inscription could 
be put on her tomb. No amplification certainly could have 
made it more impressive. 



233 



the exile of such a man, for such an offence, till 
an age at which a return to his native country 
was no longer desirable, gives a strong idea of 
the ignorance in which Louis the Fourteenth was 
kept by the malice or vindictiveness of his minis- 
ters, or their subalterns. St. Evremond's prolonged 
existence proved how little either had affected 
the happy equanimity of his mind; and he died at 
the age of ninety-two, having received from the 
friends he had acquired in England all the at- 
tentions during his life, and after his death all 
the honours, that could have been bestowed on 
him in the country to which he belonged. 

With that country, however, and those friends, 
he kept up an uninterrupted correspondence, 
which the frequent intercourse at this time sub- 
sisting between the two countries, and the 
number of French visitors to the court of White- 
hall, much facilitated. The Due de Nevers, 
Madame de Mazarin's brother, a sort of Grand 
Seigneur Bel-esprit, was more than once in 
England. In the year 1680 we find him there 
at the same time with his cousin the Grand 
Prieur Vendome, with the Due de la Tremou- 
ille, and with the Marquis de Crequi ; and in 
1687 Marianne Mancini, the Duchesse de Bou- 
illon, paid a visit to her sister, Madame de 
Mazarin, and to her cousin Mary of Modena, 



234 



then on the throne of England. The arrival of 
all these visitors from France must have formed 
very agreeable incidents in the life of St. Evre- 
mond, and maintained an interest in the so- 
ciety of his own country. His correspondence, 
too, with his contemporaries and with the asso- 
ciates of his youth was never dropped. To them 
he addresses the essays on various objects of 
taste and literature, which had formerly been 
the subject of their conversation, and the re- 
membrance of which now amused his mind and 
occupied his leisure. 

Among his letters to Ninon de PEnclos, are 
luckily preserved several of her letters to him. 
They are remarkable for their good sense, 
good taste, and unaffected propriety of expres- 
sion. These qualities, which we must suppose 
to have been at least as remarkable in her con- 
versation as in her correspondence, can alone 
account, and scarcely account, for the inter- 
course she maintained with many of the most 
respectable women of her day ; with Madame 
de Maintenon, with Madame de Coulanges, 
with Lady Sandwich, during her long residence at 
Paris (1), and with several others. This inter- 



(I) Lady Sandwich was the daughter of John Wilmot, the 
too celebrated Earl of Rochester. At her desire, Ninon de 



C 2S5 

course, however (with the exception of Madame 
de Maintenon, who had always known her, and 
who, to their mutual honour, never dropped the 
acquaintance), must have taken place during 
the latter part of the long career of Ninon. We 
cannot suppose Madame de Coulanges re- 
ceiving or visiting her while her cousin Ma- 
dame de Sevigne, with whom she was living in 
uninterrupted intimacy and friendship, was 
justly complaining of the excesses into which 
Ninon had successively led both her husband 
and her son, or indeed while her age allowed 
her to continue the habits of life in which she 
had mis-spent her youth. In her more advanced 
years, spite of all the stories so often repeated 
of her having lovers at eighty, we see by her 
letters to St. Evremond, that she perfectly knew 
how to grow old. In her situation, a talent so 
singularly difficult must suppose a strong unso- 
phisticated understanding, and much truth of 
character. She receives the gallant compliments 
which St. Evremond (with less good taste than 
she merited) still continues to bestow on her, as 
mere remembrances, and replies to them with 



l'Enclos had given her her portrait, which, at the death of 
Lady Sandwich, became the property of Horace Walpole 
Earl of Orford, and is now in the collection at Strawberry-hill. 



<236 



sober good sense, and an expression of much 
steady attachment. After all, her existence in 
the society of her day must be considered as 
one of those odd anomalies in manners which by 
incalculable combinations of circumstances have 
sometimes taken place in all countries. 

Had St. Evremond returned to France at the 
end of his long exile, in spite of his intermediate 
correspondence with individuals, he would pro- 
bably have been much surprised at the altered 
tone which the developement of the character of 
Louis the Fourteenth had imposed on the nation. 
While Mazarin allowed him no part in the 
government of his kingdom, he rather en- 
couraged his inclination to gallantry, and his 
taste for the gayeties and amusements of society; 
the more so, as the society immediately within 
the King's power, and what he most sought, wa> 
that of the Cardinal's niece, the Comtesse de 
Soissons, Olympia Mancini, married to a prince 
of the house ofSavoy(l), and made superintend- 
ent of the household of theyoungQueen. Lodged 
in the palace, her apartment was the rendezvous 
of all the young and the gay of the court. A taste 
for conversation, for an ingenious turn of thought 



(1) The Comte de Soissons was the. eldest son of Prince 
Thomas of Savoy, uncle to the then young Duke of Savoy. 



237 

and of expression, for occasional verses, and a 
ritual of studied and arbitrary politeness, had 
already raised to celebrity the house of the Mar- 
quise de Rambouillet, which, Madame de Mot- 
teville tells us, " etoit le reduit non-seulement 
" de tous les beaux esprits, mais de tous les 
" gens de la cour." In the character which she 
goes on to give of Madame de Rambouillet, we 
see little to distinguish her from any other well- 
bred woman, loving the world, wishing to be 
always surrounded by a large society, sacrificing 
much to secure it, treating all the world alike as 
to their personal merit ; but obsequious to those 
in power, and anxious of distinction at court. 
Her maternal feelings could not have been very 
lively, as of four daughters, three were made 
nuns, and one only, the much-praised Julie 
d'Angennes, appeared in the world. 

The Poetical Garland, whichbearshername, (1) 
was the contribution of all the wits that fre- 
quented the Hotel de Rambouillet (2), of whom 
it gives no very high opinion. It was presented 



(1) La Guirlande de Julie. 

(2) The famous Hotel de Rambouillet had been the house 
of a financier of the name of Rambouillet. It was situated 
at the extremity of the Rue de Charenton, and had a large 
garden which went down to the river. It had been called 
La Jblie Rambouillet. — Memoires de Courart, p. 111. notes. 



238 

as an offering to the charms of the lady, by the 
Due de Montausier, who, after a courtship of 
fourteen years, married her at the ripened age 
of thirty-eight. Why she remained so long ob- 
durate to a passion which had been expressed in 
all the metres "of the babbling earth," no good 
reason seems to be given. 

It was in these societies that Louis had early 
acquired (while all other instruction was denied 
him) those dignified manners, those attentions 
to women, and those rigorous forms of politeness, 
which helped afterwards to conceal his hard and 
self-indulging character. St. Evremond had left 
France so soon after the death of Mazarin, that he 
had never witnessed the king reigning for himself) 
and indulging in that taste for show and mag- 
nificence which succeeded in giving an impulse 
and direction to the character and taste of the 
country. His fetes and tournaments, his build- 
ings, both for public ornament and for individual 
enjoyment, served to produce in all the walks 
of art (from the genius of Moliere to that of Le 
Nostre) authors and artists surpassing their age. 

The assumed national dresses in the Carouzel, 
which took place in 1662 ; the band of Romans 
headed by the King, of Persians by his brother, 
of Americans by the Due de Guise, bringing to- 
gether no less than 600 persons, must have set to 



239 

work a host of artisans, and given an increased 
activity to all the manufactures connected with 
ornament and luxury. 

This impulse must necessarily have often pro- 
duced improvements in matters of more com- 
mon and general use. The fetes of Versailles 
in 1664 lasted a week ; history and fable were 
ransacked for characters, which the favoured in- 
dividuals of the court were themselves to per- 
sonate. Thus a part of the entertainment of all 
depending on their exertions, and a part of the 
honour devolving on each individual well ac- 
quitting themselves, must have sharpened the 
wits of all: — we may suppose, too, that their 
adopted characters sometimes made them ac- 
quainted with personages of antiquity, and with 
traits of history, of which their very neglected 
education would otherwise have left them ig- 
norant. It must have had the still greater ad- 
vantage of bringing them into immediate contact 
with all the superior talents of their own day, to 
whom they were obliged to have recourse for 
the interest of their pleasures, and were indebted 
for the means of being able to amuse themselves. 
It is therefore rather from their effects on the 
future social life in France, than for their own 
well-known details, that these fetes are here 
mentioned. Particulars of the entertainments of 



240 



a court must, in all times and in all countries, 
much resemble one another. Beauty and youth 
have always sought courts with eagerness, as one 
of the theatres of their many triumphs ; have 
there produced their always-allowed claims, have 
been admired, envied, flattered, and forgotten. 

But on these fetes of Louis the Fourteenth, from 
the talents by which they were honoured, and from 
the subsequent celebrity of many of the assist- 
ants, the imagination dwells with peculiar interest, 
and, losing in the distance from which they are 
viewed all the heart-burnings and all the 
envy, all the vexations and all the fatigue by 
which they must have been accompanied, repre- 
sents to itself with pleasure the commencement 
of the flattering triumph of laValiere, — a youth- 
ful monarch, impressed for the first time with a 
degree of that diffidence inseparable from real 
passion ; who, instead of throwing the handker- 
chief with affronting security to the object of 
his passion, 

" Love's awful throne approached by just degrees. 
11 And, as he would be happy, learnt to please." 

Imagination pictures her timid eyes, unconscious 
of the secret they betrayed, riveted on the King, 
when, distinguished no less by his youth and 
manly beauty than by all the jewels of the 



241 

crown glittering on his dress and on the trap- 
pings of his horse, he led the brilliant band of 
knights who were to figure in the ensuing tourna- 
ment. Thus opened the first day of the week of 
fetes, during which a court of 600 persons were 
lodged and entertained at the King's expence, 
besides the whole host of artists, subalterns, and 
servants necessary for the preparation and at- 
tendance on these varied shows. We figure to 
ourselves Madame de Sevigne, yet young enough 
to have attracted admiration on her own account, 
totally occupied with that bestowed on her 
daughter. Mademoiselle de Sevigne first ap- 
peared at court the preceding year, and now 
made one of the performers in the ballets danced 
by the King, which formed a part of these enter- 
tainments. We see the delighted eyes of the 
happy mother following the object of her affec- 
tions in the assumed character of a Shepherdess, 
of a Nereid, and of anOmphale, which fell to her 
lot in these exhibitions. The variety of costume 
in which they took place, gave scope not only to 
a display of the beauty, but of the grace and 
taste of the performers. Benserade celebrated 
the charms of Mademoiselle de Sevigne in verses 
hardly less complimentary to the mother than to 
the daughter. The talent of this court poet for 
bespoken verses and varied forms of adulation 

R 



242 



was unrivalled ; it was that of his day, and of the 
fetes which called it forth. Of a very different 
nature were the dramas with which they were 
dignified by the genius of Moliere. His Princess 
d' Elide was given on the fourth day of this week : 
it was full of allusions, now lost, to the sentiments, 
the interests, and the circumstances of the 
moment. The whole of the first scene between 
the young prince and his confidant evidently 
alludes to the state of the King's sentiments for 
Mademoiselle de la Valiere, and takes pains 
(probably little wanted) to encourage him in the 
indulgence of his passion, and to convince him 
that the weaknesses of love were necessary to 
the character of an accomplished prince. Every 
succeeding evening produced a new piece of 
Moliere's. The Fdcheiuv was given on the fifth 
day, the three first acts of Tartuffe on the sixth 
day, and Le Marriage Force on the seventh. If 
any other part of these entertainments equalled 
that of the theatre, they certainly have remained 
unrivalled, and deserved all the excessive ad- 
miration bestowed on them by their contempo- 
raries. 

Voltaire recalls this period of the life of Louis 
in the person of a disappointed stranger visiting 
Paris for the first time in later days, and no 
longer finding any remains of the magnificence 



243 

and the triumphs which he had heard extolled, 
and came to witness : — 

* Quels plaisirs, quand vos jours marques par vos conquetes 

" S'embellissoient encore a r*e"clat de vos fetes ! 

" L'^tranger admiroit dans votre auguste cour 

" Cent filles de heros, conduites par l'amour ; 

" Ces belles Montbazons, ces Chatillons brillantes, 

" Ces piquantes Bouillons, ces Nemours si touchantes, 

" Dansant avec Louis sous de berceaux de fleurs, 

tc Et du Rhin subjuge couronnant les vainqueurs. 

u Perrault du Louvre auguste, elevant la merveille, 

" Le Grand Conde pleurant aux vers du grand Corneille ; 

u Tandis que plus aimable, et plus maitre des coeurs, 

" Racine, d'Henriette exprimoit les douleurs, 

" Et voilant ce beau nom, du nom de Berenice 

" Des feux les plus touchans peignoit le sacrifice." (1 ) 

It is not the business of this work to follow 
Louis the Fourteenth from the fetes and festivals 
of his youth, through the military pomps and 
pageantry of his riper years. They were all sug- 
gested by the same ideas of grandeur, the same 
love of show, and the same personal vanity. 
These ideas being common both to himself and 
to his people, were reflected back by the court 
which surrounded him, and combined into a 
species of enthusiasm which for a time usurped 



(1) Le Russe a Paris. Contes en Vers, Satires et Poesies 
melees. 

R 2 



244 

the place of every other, and obstructed the 
slow progress of more rational ideas. In his 
march through Flanders in I67O, he was fol- 
lowed by his whole court. He had hitherto 
always accompanied his troops on horseback ; he 
now for the first time appeared to them in a 
coach with glass windows, then a very recent 
luxury. (1) Of these lumbering vehicles exact 
representations yet remain in the pictures of 
Vandermeulan. They contained six, eight, and 
sometimes nine persons, as all the royal family, 
in the first degree of affinity, in certain great 
ceremonies went together. (2) 



(1) Bassompierre had brought the first carriage with 
glass windows from Venice. 

(2) They were still in use during the reign of Louis the 
Sixteenth, and the author remembers having seen the un- 
fortunate Marie Antoinette incased in one of these clumsy 
conveyances when, in the year 1785, she went to Notre 
Dame to return thanks for the birth of the last ill-fated 
Dauphin. The same vehicle contained the Comtesse de 
Provence, the Comtesse d'Artois, Madame Elizabeth, the 
Duchesse d'Orleans, and the Princesse de Conti. The fa- 
tigue and ennui of her long passage through the crowded 
streets of Paris in such a carriage was not rewarded or 
lightened by a single note of applause from the surrounding 
multitude, nor one consoling expression of that admiration 
formerly lavished on her every public appearance. Se- 
parated from the King, who formed no part of the proces- 
sion, the public seemed to profit by the occasion to evince to 
her individually, their altered sentiments. 



m5 

In the carriage with Louis the Fourteenth, 
during his campaign ofl670, travelled the Queen 
with Madame de Montespan for her dame 
d'honneur, Madame (Henrietta of England), and 
la grande Mademoiselle. However the company 
might have pleased the King, we cannot conceive 
their being very agreeable travelling companions 
to one another. Madame de la Valiere was still 
the reigning mistress, and it was on this occa- 
sion (the only one where she seems to have 
braved the Queen), that she ordered her postil- 
lions to leave the great road, and take a short 
cut over the open country, that she might arrive 
at head quarters before the court. (1) 

On a second progress through Flanders in 
1674, all attentions and honours, except those of 
mere etiquette to the Queen, were for Madame 
de Montespan, then in the zenith of her favour; 
and we know she was not of a disposition to con- 
ceal or to soften any of the advantages the 
King's passion gave her over her legitimate rival. 
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, again one of the 
party, mentions the jealousy and vexation of the 
Queen when on her road from Tournay to 
Amiens (where the court was ordered to wait 



(1) See Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, torn. iv. 
p. 197. 

R 3 



246 

for the King), while stopping to dine she saw 
Madame de Montespan pass in a carriage of the 
King's, with four gens-d'armes sent from the 
army to escort her. Her journeys afterwards 
were made with something like royal attendance. 
Madame de Sevigne, who followed her on the 
road to the baths of Vichy in May I676, says, 
" Nous suivons les pas de Madame de Montes- 
" pan; nous nous faisons conter par-tout ce qu'elle 
" fait, ce qu'elle mange, ce qu'elle dort. Elle est 
" dans une caleche a six chevaux, avec la petite 
" Thianges(her niece). Elleauncarrossederriere, 
" attele de meme, avec six femmes. Elle a deux 
" fourgons, six mulets, et dix ou douze homines 
" a cheval. sans ses officiers. Son train est de 
" 45 personnes. Elle trouve la chambre et son 
" lit tout prets ; elle se couche en arrivant, et 
" mange tres-bien." — Lettres de Sevig?ie, torn. hi. 
p. 418. 

It is unnecessary farther to dwell on the often- 
told tale of the brilliant days of Louis the Four- 
teenth. Madame de Sevigne has adorned it with 
all the graces of her inimitable pen, and has often 
drawn from it reflections the more excellent, 
from being generally suggested as much by the 
heart as by the understanding. St. Simon lias 
entered into its details with a caustic truth, rare 
from the mind of a devoted courtier ; and 



247 

Dangeau has recorded the trifling incidents of 
every day, which often present much more to 
the mind of the reader than ever entered the 
head of their historian. 

It is our business only to notice the change 
produced on the manners of the nation by the 
altered taste of the sovereign in his latter days. 
La Bruyere says of these times, comparing them 
with the past, " Le courtisan avoit ses cheveux, 
" etoit en chausses et en pourpoint, portoit de 
" large canons, et il etoit libertin. Cela ne sied 
" plus. II porte perruque, l'habit serre, le bas uni, 
" et il est devot." — LaBruyere, torn. ii. p. 225. 

" L'exemple d'un monarque ordonne et se fait suivre : 
" Quand Auguste buvoit, la Pologne etoit ivre; 
" Quand Louis le Grand bmloit d'un tendre amour, 
" Paris devint Cy there, et tout suivoit la cour ; 
" Lorsqu'il devint devot, et ardent a la priere, 
" Le lache courtisan marmotta son breViaire." 
CEuvres de Frederick le Grand, Epitre au Comte Hoditz. 

The false policy and the bigoted observances 
which disgraced the latter part of the reign of 
Louis the Fourteenth, seem to have been more 
the effects of an ignorance which was imposed 
on by others, than any predispositions of his own 
to persecution. His language on these matters, 
in his advice to the Dauphin, written under his 
dictation by Pelisson, and published in the com- 
pilation which bears the name of Les CEuvres de 

r 4 



248 

Louis Quatorze, breathes a very different spirit 
from that of the revocation of the edict of 
Nantes (1) ; and his refusing to comply with the 
violences continually suggested to him by le 
Tellier against the Cardinal de Noailles, the 
virtuous Archbishop of Paris, although he con- 
curred in every lesser act of vexation towards 
him, proves weakness rather than malevolence 
in a character armed with absolute power. ( L 2) 

The same weakness which made him thus 
treat the man of whom he had said, when 
removing him from the see of Chalons to that of 
Paris, that had he known a more deserving or 



(1) " II me semble, mon fils, que ceux qui vouloient 
" employer des remedes extremes et violens, ne con- 
" noissent pas la nature de ce mal, cause en partie par la 
" chaleur des esprits, qu'il faut laisser passer et s'eteindre in- 
" sensiblement, plutot que de la rallumer de nouveau par une 
" forte contradiction, sur-tout quand la corruption n'est pas 
" borne a un petit nombre connu, mais repandu dans toutes 
" les parties de Petat ; et d'ailleurs, les reformateurs 
11 disoient vrai visiblement en plusieurs choses. Le meil- 
M leur moyen pour re"duire peu-a-peu les Hugenots de mon 
" royaume £toit de ne point presser par aucun rigueur 
" nouvelle contre eux." 

(2) " Le Roi l'accabloit de tous les degouts qui auroient 
" terrasse un pretre courtisan ; mais quand on lui parloit de 
11 la depose, de I'enlever, et de Tenferraer, il eprouvoit plus 
" de trouble que le pieux archeveque objet de ses menaces." 
— Histoire de France pendant le Dix-septiemc Siccle, tom.i. 
p. 81, 



249 

more virtuous prelate, he should not have 
preferred Noailles ; the same weakness made 
him neglect Catinat because he was a protestant, 
employ Venddme, who was a notorious profligate 
without either religion or morals, and sign the 
revocation of the edict of Nantes. 

Le Montey observes, that the existence of 
Louis the Fourteenth may be divided into two 
parts, his heroic and his subjugated life. Imme- 
diately after the death of Mazarin, his conduct 
had risen far above what was expected from his 
natural talents, and the disgraceful neglect of his 
education ; while, in the latter half of his life, 
his character and conduct seem to have been 
prematurely enfeebled. 

His robust health, his insensibility to excesses 
of heat and cold, and his power of supporting 
fatigue, which were as remarkable as his other 
personal endowments, were broken in upon by a 
painful disorder before he was fifty. — " Avec 
" la sante disparurent les victoires, les amours, 
" et Montespan ; avec les infirmites arrivoient 
" les dragonades, le Jansenism, les confesseurs, 
" le credit des batards, F obsession de la gou- 
" vernante, les intrigues de la veuve Scarron. 
— Monarchie de Louis Quatorze, p. 412. 

This veuve Scarron, in spite of all the abuse 
inevitably excited by the remarkable caprice of 



c 250 



fortune which converted la veuve Scar r on into 
the wife of Louis the Fourteenth, appears to 
have been naturally neither a very ambitious 
nor a very narrow-minded woman. The extra- 
ordinary circumstances in which she was placed, 
made her both : the first from having been 
elevated to almost regal power, the second from 
being a proselyte in religion. The effect of 
this last circumstance is avowed by herself in a 
letter to Madame de Frontenac about the year 
1680. " Ruvigne est intraitable, il a dit au 
roi que j'etois nee Calviniste, et que je l'avois 
" ete jusqu'a mon, entree a la cour. Ced 
" nC engage a approuver des c hoses fort opposee 
" a mes sentimcns. II y a long terns que je n'en 
" ai plus a moi." — Lett res de Madame de 
Main tenon, torn. i. p. 77. 

Her character meanwhile retained much of 
the good derived from the difficulties and indi- 
gence in which she had passed her youth. The 
friendly intercourse she never ceased to main- 
tain with several persons, whose intimacy and 
protection she had shared in times which a 
more ordinary character would have wished to 
forget, says much both for her heart and her 
understanding. That heart and understanding 
must be pitied, when placed in a situation, how- 
ever elevated, which punished every feeling ol 



251 

the one, precluded every enjoyment of the 
other, and exposed to public unpopularity, 
with no consolation but the cold gratifications of 
ambition. 

She had supplanted an imperious and pro- 
voking rival ; she had satisfied the scruples of 
her conscience ; she had succeeded to a more 
complete dominion than any of her predecessors 
over the will and opinions of One whose breath 
was still power, and whose favour was fame. 
Yet is the sincerity of her repeated and earnest 
expressions of ennui and melancholy not to be 
doubted. She had attained a situation which 
she could not, and which nobody would have 
abandoned ; of which she speaks as a sage, while 
often acting in it like a timid and short-sighted 
woman. — Of all persons, she must have felt the 
most, that courts confer not that happiness which 
they prevent those accustomed to them from 
finding elsewhere. 

The task of which she complains, of amusing 
a being no longer am usable (1), must have 
fallen heavy on the mind of her who could, in 
absolute indigence, and without any assured 
means of subsistence, write on the subject of 
a marriage then proposed for her in the follow- 
ing terms to Ninon de l'Enclos, who might 



(1) " D'amuser un etre, qui n'est plus amusable.' 



Q52 

be supposed not to entertain very scrupulous 
ideas of the sentiments necessary in such a con- 
nexion. " Mars 8. 1666. Dans Petat ou je 
" suis, je ne saurez me dire trop souvent que 
" vous approuvez le courage que j'ai eu, de m'y 
" mettre. — A la Place Royale, on me blame ; 
" a St. Germain, on me loue ; et nulle part on 
" ne songe ni a me plaindre, ni a me servir. — 
" Que pensez-vous de la comparaison qu'on a 
" ose faire de cet homme a Mr. Scarron ? — O 
" Dieu ! quelle difference ! Sans fortune, sans 
" plaisirs, il attiroit chez moi la bonne com- 
" pagnie. Celui-ci 1'auroit hai et eloigne. Mr. 
" Scarron avoit cet enjouement que tout le 
" monde sait, et cet bonte d'esprit, que presque 
11 personne ne lui a connu. Celui-ci ni Pa, ni bril- 
" lant, ni badin,ni solide: s'il parle, il est ridicule. 
" Mon mart avoit le fond excellent. Je l'avois 
" corrige de ses licences. II n'etoit ni fbu ni 
" vicieux par le cceur, d'une probite reconnue, 
" d'un d^sinteressement sans example. C * * 
11 n'aime que ses plaisirs, et n'est estime que 
44 d'une jeunesse perdue. Livre aux femmes, 
** dupe de ses amis, haut, emporte, avare, et 
" prodigue — au moins, m'a-t-il paru tout cela." 
Lettres de Maintenon, torn. i. p. 3S. 

The melancholy reverses of the latter part of 
the reign of Louis the Fourteenth ; his army 



253 

beaten, his finances ruined, his cities and country 
depopulated, not only by war, but by the more 
destructive hostility of religious persecution; were 
alone sufficient to account for a cessation of that 
magnificence, of those fetes, and of the dispo- 
sition to indulge in them, which had so long 
blinded both himself and his people to the evils 
he was accumulating on their heads. Still, how- 
ever, an habitual and imposing pomp surrounded 
his court. An habitual respect was entertained 
for him ; an habitual remembrance of his past 
triumphs, and an habitual obedience to his will. 
These might have prolonged, in his own eyes, 
the vision of his infallibility, had not his interior 
life been tormented by the interminable quarrels 
of Jesuits and Jansenists, and the little concord 
existing between the confessor and the wife, to 
whom he alternately applied for worldly con- 
solation and spiritual security. He saw his 
family dying around him, and witnessed within 
one year the loss of the three next successors 
to his throne. Another death, which took place 
at the same time, was yet more immediately 
destructive of his interior comfort. 

The Dauphine, Duchess of Burgundy, seems 
to have been the only member of the royal 
family from whom he received those delightful 
attentions, and in whom he encouraged that 



2.54 



perfect familiarity and freedom of mind, which 
allows the gaiety of youth to communicate 
something of its exhilarating spirit to the failing 
senses of age. 

Her apparent frankness, her childish tricks, 
and the liberties she took in his presence, some 
of which must have been those alluded to bv a 
distinguished English writer on this period, 
when he professes omitting the details of many 
habits of Louis the Fourteenth and his family 
as " too indelicate for the perusal of the hum- 
" blest class of English readers" — it must be 
in the highest, and not the humblest class of 
readers in any country, where forgiveness can 
be hoped for any childishness, any nonsense, or 
any tricks, however little consonant with pro- 
priety, which could relieve tor a moment the 
intolerable ennui that age, etiquette, the satiety 
of pleasure, and the melancholy sameness of 
magnificence, had accumulated on the head of 
Louis the Fourteenth. To his selfish character, 
therefore, the death of the Duchess of Burgundy 
must have been more felt than that of her husband 
and their child, or that of his own son, which 
immediately preceded or followed it. Of the 
first Dauphin (known by the name of A/oflA 
neur) the insignificance and nullity of character 
were so great, and his dulness on all subjects so 



255 

profound, that not even the interested activity of 
a cabal of intriguers, who surrounded the heir of 
a king of past seventy, could raise him either into 
activity or into notice. " On le trouvoit pendant 
" des journees entieres couche dans son lit, ou 
" bien ii se trainoit sur une chaise, une canne a 
" la main, dont il frappoit ses souliers sans mot 
" dire. Enfin, il restoit des jours entiers assis et 
" immobile, les yeux fixes sur une table, une des 
" coudes appuyes dessus, se bouchant des mains 
" les deux oreilles, et vecut plusieurs annees, 
" pere du Roi d'Espagne, et fils de notre Roi, 
cl sans qu'il eut l'idee, ou la hardiesse, d'employer 
" le credit qu'il devoit avoir aupres de Pun et 
" de l'autre, pour obtenir la moindre grace. — 
Mem. die Due de Richelieu, torn. i. p. 113. 

This eldest son of the King of France, this 
father of the King of Spain, died at Meudon, 
unlamented and unthought of by any body, but 
half a dozen intriguing women, who had got pos- 
session of his passive mind and person. 

Of the Dauphin Duke of Burgundy it is im- 
possible to believe all the bad, or all the good, 
reported of him. Le Montey remarks, " Ce 
11 Prince qui avoit re$u des passions violentes, 
" et une education sainte, epuiser tour-a-tour les 
" exces qui peuvent produire des causes si 
" contraires." — Monarchie de Louis Quatorze, 



256 



p. 444. And it is perhaps lucky that he died in 
time to preserve the wholesome idea that edu- 
cation can perform the miracles it was supposed 
to have done in his case. 

But the feelings excited by all these deaths 
were envenomed to the King by the horrible 
suspicion, that they had occurred, not as a dis- 
pensation of Providence, but by poison, and that 
poison administered by one of his own family. 
This was continually urged, by the ignorance, u 
well as by the private interests of those about 
him. And credit should be given to the King 
for trusting to the opinion of the single one of 
his medical advisers who declared against the 
supposed poison, as much as to the adviser who 
was bold enough, in sucli circumstances, to 
maintain such an opinion against all his col- 
leagues. ( 1 ) 

The rigorous winter under which the whole 
of Europe had suffered in the year 1709s was 
succeeded in France by a famine, which uniting 
its dreadful effects to the depopulating victories 
of Marlborough and Eugene, reduced that coun- 
try to the most lamentable state of internal 
misery. While Europe was still admiring the 
gilding, the statues, and the fountains of Yev- 

(1) Marechal, who was surgeon to Louis the Fourteenth. 



257 

sailles and Marly, the armies of France were 
recruited from a starving population, which 
sought bread more than honour under her 
standards. The memoirs of Dangeau (too good 
a courtier to dwell willingly on the subject) 
are full of reports of risings in the provinces, 
and partial riots in Paris, from mere starvation, 
and the impossibility of procuring the means 
of existence. Mention is likewise made of a 
circumstance which shows that to excess of 
misery was joined excess of misgovernment. 
All the regiments in the towns of Flanders 
and Alsace successively mutinied, from being 
obliged by their officers to take bread from the 
commissaries of the army at a higher price than 
they could obtain it in the market, and were 
only pacified by money being distributed among 
them. (1) 

In these disastrous circumstances, Louis the 
Fourteenth was indebted to the ignominious 
terms offered to him by his triumphant enemies, 
for calling forth a vigour of mind and a dignity 
of conduct, which he had hitherto only shown 
on trifling occasions, and to an idolizing court. 
When the allies proposed in 1709, as the only 
terms on which even a truce was to be granted, 

(1) he Montey, Suppressed Paragraphs of Dangeau, p. 272. 

s 



258 



that he should within two months join their 
arms to drive his own grandson from the throne 
of Spain, he encouraged his starving population 
to further exertions and to prolonged sufferings, 
by declaring that he must ever prefer making 
war on his enemies rather than on his own 
children ; and that if his armies continued un- 
successful, he was determined, in spite of his 
age and infirmities, to put himself at the head 
of his nobility, and die in the field. The feel- 
ings of Frenchmen still responded to this lan- 
guage from their sovereign ; and in spite of 
another successful campaign of Marlborough, and 
the battle of Malplaquet, their devoted bravery, 
and the success of Villars against Prince Eugene 
at Denain, saved France from the immediate 
invasion which was meditated by the alii 

From this time to the death of Louis the 
Fourteenth, within five years afterwards, the 
universal and bigotted devotion of the court 
trayed its hypocrisy. The old and grave were, or 
pretended to be, occupied with religious contro- 
versies, which recalled those of the last w 
of the western empire. The young were eagerly 
anticipating a reward for present restraints, in 
the expected gaiety of a new reign, and the 
licence of which the character of the Duke of 
Orleans had already given assurance. 



159 



CHAPTER VL 

THE CHANGE OF MANNERS WHICH TOOK PLACE IN ENG- 
LAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. KING WIL- 
LIAM. QUEEN MARY. THE AMUSEMENTS AND HABITS 

OF SOCIAL LIFE DURING THE REIGNS OF KING WIL- 
LIAM AND OF QUEEN ANNE. — DUCHESS OF NORFOLK^ 
DIVORCE. DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, LADY MA- 
SHAM. QUEEN ANNE. LADY BETTY GERMAINE. 

DUCHESS OF QUEENSBURY. LADY M. W. MONTAGUE. 

BOLINGBROKE. POPE. SWIFT. STEELE. GAY. 

PRIOR. CONGREVE. DEGRADED STATE OF THE 

FINE ARTS. 

The changes which took place in the social ex- 
istence of France, during the long reign of Louis 
the Fourteenth, occupy a period which in English 
history extends from before the restoration of 
Charles the Second to after the accession of the 
house of Hanover (1) ; and it is as remarkable for 
the different conduct and sentiments of the two 
nations, as any period of their preceding civil 
wars. 

From the momentary delirium of the Restor- 
ation the English nation (now long accustomed 



(1) From 1660 to 1717- 

s 2 



260 



to think on subjects of government) soon re- 
covered. The popish plot on the one side, and 
the arbitrary measures of domestic government 
which immediately followed on the other, soon 
convinced both parties that nothing had been 
done by either to secure what all had been 
fighting for. The Revolution of 1688 ensued, in 
which few things are perhaps more commend- 
able, or less borrowed from the character of our 
neighbours, than the leaders of that revolution 
having wisely contented themselves with aban- 
doning as little as possible the established order 
both of government and of succession, and ral- 
lying as much as possible to settled institutions ; 
satisfied with real securities, instead of apparent 
differences. 

The change in social life and manners was of 
a much more evident nature. The early years 
of William had been past in a country, and in 
circumstances, not favourable to the formation 
of a popular character. Born at the end of seven 
months, in an apartment yet hung with black for 
the death of his father and the execution of his 
grandfather, his health and organization were 
languid and feeble. He lost his mother when 
only ten years old, and w r as then left almost in 
infancy in the hands of the popular faction of 
his country, which was neither friendly to him- 



261 

selfi his family, or its pretensions. Thus early 
deprived of the tenderness of parents, and of 
that first cultivation of the heart which can 
seldom be received from strangers, he was 
called, at the age of twenty-two, to head the 
armies of his country, in an occasion of peculiar 
danger and despondency. The whole of his 
after life seems to have received a decided im- 
pression from these circumstances of his early 
youth. 

His steady and unshaken mind, and great 
military talents, were called forth and perfected 
by the extraordinary difficulties in which he was 
placed; while his naturally sedate and serious 
nature, and his acquired reserve, precluded his 
possessing any of the engaging attributes of 
youth. Even the persons the most aware of his 
virtues, lamented their cold, inattractive com- 
plexion. He had no taste for literature, or the 
fine arts, either by nature or cultivation ; his 
clumsy addition to the collegiate magnificence of 
Cardinal Wolsey at Hampton Court, was a poor 
and ill-judged imitation of the grandeur of Ver- 
sailles, in a country where the expenditure was 
to be granted by votes of parliament, and not 
depending on the will of the prince. William 
abhorred show as much as Louis loved it, and 
was soon disgusted by the enormous charges of 

s 3 



264 

please by an implicit devotion to his will. They 
show, too, that she had adopted much of his 
habitual reserve to the persons about her, ne- 
cessary perhaps in those uncertain and trea- 
cherous times. She says, " I go to Kensington 
" as often as I can for change of air ; but then 1 
" can never be quite alone, neither can I com- 
" plain : that would be some ease ; but I have 
" nobody whose humour and circumstances 
" agree enough with mine to speak my mind 
" freely to ; besides, I must hear about business, 
" which being a thing I am so new in, and so 
" unfit for, does but break my brains the more, 
" and not ease my heart." She has before de- 
clared that she never does any thing now with- 
out thinking he may be in the greatest danger. 
" And yet I must see company on my set dn\ B, 
" I must play twice a week, nay, I must laugh 
M and talk, though never so much against my will. 
" I believe I dissemble very ill to those who know 
" me ; yet I must endure it : all my motions are 
" watched, and all I do so observed, that if I eat 
" less, or speak less, or look more grave, all is 
" lost, in the opinion of the world ; so that I have 
" this misery added to that of your absence, and 
" my fears for your dear person, — that 1 must 
" grin when my heart is ready to break, and talk 



265 



" when my heart is so oppressed I can scarce 
" breathe." (1) 

The sufferings of persons placed in the most 
brilliant and envied circumstances are here 
forcibly recalled to us, and the misery of all 
situations so exalted as to preclude the com- 
forts of confidence and sympathy. That Mary 
should have allowed herself to be persuaded by 
any arguments of supposed necessity, on her 
first arrival in London, to enter with a laughing 
countenace the palace at Whitehall from which 
her father had fled but a few days before ; that 
she should have run about with an idle curiosity 
from room to room (which even her panegyrist 
Burnet allows to have been the case) proves a 
want of all individual character, perhaps as much 
as a want of feeling. Her being induced to 
bespeak the Spanish Friar for the play at which 
she made her first appearance at the theatre, 
can only be attributed to her having been misled 
by persons as ignorant as herself, or perhaps 
treacherously seeking to place her in an odious 
light. (2) Her quarrel with her sister Anne 
proves they were equally without any elevation 
of sentiment. But Mary possessed the power, 

(1) Appendix to Macpherson's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 166. 

(2) Note from Lord Nottingham's Letters in Macpherson's 
Memoirs. 



26* 

please by an implicit devotion to his will. They 
show, too, that she had adopted much of his 
habitual reserve to the persons about her, ne- 
cessary perhaps in those uncertain and trea- 
cherous times. She says, " I go to Kensington 
" as often as I can for change of air ; but then 1 
" can never be quite alone, neither can I com- 
" plain : that would be some ease ; but I have 
" nobody whose humour and circumstances 
" agree enough with mine to speak my mind 
" freely to ; besides, I must hear about business, 
" which being a thing I am so new in, and so 
" unfit for, does but break my brains the more, 
" and not ease my heart." She has before de- 
clared that she never does any thing now with- 
out thinking he may be in the greatest danger. 
" And yet I must see company on my set days, 
" I must play twice a week, nay, I must laugh 
«' and talk, though never so much against my will. 
" I believe I dissemble very ill to those who know 
" me ; yet I must endure it : all my motions are 
u w r atched, and all I do so observed, that if I eat 
" less, or speak less, or look more grave, all is 
" lost, in the opinion of the world ; so that I have 
" this misery added to that of your absence, and 
" my fears for your dear person, — that 1 must 
" grin when my heart is ready to break, and talk 



26.5 



" when my heart is so oppressed I can scarce 
" breathe." (1) 

The sufferings of persons placed in the most 
brilliant and envied circumstances are here 
forcibly recalled to us, and the misery of all 
situations so exalted as to preclude the com- 
forts of confidence and sympathy. That Mary 
should have allowed herself to be persuaded by 
any arguments of supposed necessity, on her 
first arrival in London, to enter with a laughing 
countenace the palace at Whitehall from which 
her father had fled but a few days before ; that 
she should have run about with an idle curiosity 
from room to room (which even her panegyrist 
Burnet allows to have been the case) proves a 
want of all individual character, perhaps as much 
as a want of feeling. Her being induced to 
bespeak the Spanish Friar for the play at which 
she made her first appearance at the theatre, 
can only be attributed to her having been misled 
by persons as ignorant as herself, or perhaps 
treacherously seeking to place her in an odious 
light. (2) Her quarrel with her sister Anne 
proves they were equally without any elevation 
of sentiment. But Mary possessed the power, 

(1) Appendix to Macpherson's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 166. 

(2) Note from Lord Nottingham's Letters in Macpherson's 
Memoirs. 



266 



and therefore ought to have been the most pla- 
cable. 

Her death, at the age of thirty-three, was more 
politically than individually regretted. All the 
time-serving part of the nation, whose renunci- 
ation of King James was not grounded on the 
true footing of his forfeiture of the throne from 
misconduct, were deprived of their only excuse, 
— that of having transferred their allegiance to his 
eldest legitimate heir. Those whose principles 
as well as conduct had deeply involved them in 
the measure of inviting over the Prince of 
Orange, must have trembled for the shock it 
was likely to give to his authority. And the 
clergy of the church of England, many of whom 
seem to have dreaded the supposed Calvinistical 
prejudices of William almost as much as the 
Popish propensities of James, thought them- 
selves deprived of their only protection in the 
orthodoxy of the Queen. 

The superiority of William's character and 
measures, and the solid good sense of the 
English people, ill duly appreciating what he 
had secured to them, were perhaps never more 
evident than in his retaining quiet possession of 
the crown, after the death of her, in whom his 
only right (except that of conquest) was centred. 

It was the people in whom these opinion 



267 

were the most strongly grounded. In an 
account given to James's ministers, by a person 
sent on purpose to sound the general disposition 
of the English towards his return at this period, 
the writer says, that he had certainly more 
friends than enemies among the upper orders of 
the people, on account of the heavy taxes and 
other grievances. This the writer concludes 
from the indulgence shown to Jacobites by the 
lieutenants of counties, justices of the peace, &c. 
and from the conversation of the gentlemen all 
over the country. " But for the common people, 
" they are still venomous, and the magistrates 
" in most corporation towns round the nation 
" no less malignant. They own their present 
" burthens very heavy, yet profess openly, that 
" they would rather carry it on and on, than let 
" Popery, by restoring the King, steal in upon 
" them ; and when asked how they can read the 
11 King's last declaration, and observe the pro- 
" mises therein made, and yet doubt either of 
" the establishment or tranquillity of their own 
" church, they answer that, being certain some 
" of these promises will be broke, they find 
" reason to doubt whether any of them will be 
" kept." (1) Of the unpopularity of William 

(1) Macpherson's State Papers. 



268 

with the upper orders of society he was himself 
well aware, and was sometimes disgusted with 
the manner in which it was enforced to him by 
the conduct of parliament. The Duke of 
Shrewsbury tells Lord Somers, in a letter writ- 
ten soon after the dismissal of the Dutch guards, 
that the King had mentioned to him (the Duke 
of Shrewsbury) a design he had had of leaving 
England, " soon after he came over, occasioned 
" by something that had gone wrong in the 
" first parliament, and speaks with uneasiness of 
" the King's second design to go away, when 
" the guards were taken from him. ,, (l) The 
court of two persons of the characters of 
William and Mary was not likely to have been 
very gay, even if the circumstances attending 
their having mounted the throne had not 
formed a revolution in manners still greater 
than in government. 

All the sober part of the nation from moral 
reasons, all the Whigs from political principles, 
all Protestants from aversion to Papists, all 



(1) These words are copied from a letter of Mr. Charles 
Yorke (the Chancellor's son) to his brother, Sir Joseph 
Yorke, giving an account of his examination of Lord 
Somers's papers, at Bellbar, in 174 c 2. The papers were 
afterwards almost all unfortunately burnt at a tire in 
Mr. Yorke's chambers in Lincoln's Inn. 



269 

united in abhorrence of the manners of the late 
court ; for the court, at the period of which we 
are speaking, still exercised an authority in man- 
ners, an importance in the country, and a na- 
tional consideration, which ceased soon after the 
Bill of Rights had defined exactly its powers, and 
the little that court could or could not do. All 
social communication between the courts of 
France and England, all adoption of her fashions 
or amusements, likewise ceased, or became sus- 
pected. None of the numerous French who 
had visited England during the reigns of Charles 
and James remained, except those whom the re- 
vocation of the edict of Nantes had exiled on 
account of their religion. The Duchess of 
Mazarin was still detained by her debts, in spite 
of King William having generously continued to 
her the pension of 4000/. a year which she had 
first received from Charles ; and St. Evremond 
was now too old to avail himself of a permission 
to return to a country which had so long re- 
jected him. 

The religious education and sober habits in 
which both William and Mary had been brought 
up, made their court immediately assume an ap- 
pearance of much decency and regularity of 
conduct. The short and distracted reign o£ 
James could hardly be separated, either in man- 



270 

ners or morals, from the twenty licentious years 
which had preceded it. The stage, we find, had 
neither reformed its language nor its precepts ; 
for some of our most defective comedies in these 
particulars, as has been before observed, date 
from the first ten years after the Revolution. 
This became a sufficient reason, why, when 
more refined manners and a better taste in 
morals prevailed, the theatres ceased to be a 
popular amusement in the upper ranks of so- 
ciety, and justified the neglect of them which 
continued during the early part of the last cen- 
tury. Several distinguished singers having 
visited this country during the reigns of Charles 
and James, a taste had been acquired for Italian 
music : it was now about to be established in a 
theatre exclusively dedicated to it, and patron- 
ised by the nobility and the good company of 
London, as a less exceptionable entertainment 
than the national theatre. It certainly had no 
chance of corrupting either the heart or the un- 
derstanding, neither of which were at all called 
into action at these exhibitions. 

" Mrs. Tofts, a mere Englishwoman, in the 
" part of Camilla, courted by Nicolini, an Italian, 
" without understanding a syllable each other 
" said ;" Mrs. Tofts chanting her recitative in 
English, in answer to his Italian ; " and, on the 



271 

" other hand, Valentirri courting amorously in 
" the same language a Dutchwoman, who could 
" neither speak English nor Italian, and com- 
" mitted murder on our good old English with 
" as little understanding as a parrot, could in- 
" terest nothing but the eyes and ears. "(1) 

These particulars may give us some idea of 
the strange incongruities which accompanied the 
infancy of the establishment of the opera in Lon- 
don. No wonder that, in the beginning of the 
next reign, Steele and Addison exerted them- 
selves to recall the public taste to the English 
stage. They had both of them endeavoured, by 
example as well as precept, to purify it from that 
alloy of coarseness of sentiment and of expression 
which debased the otherwise sterling and incom- 
parable comedies of Congreve, Vanburgh, and 
Farquhar. In the Tatler and Spectator they 
strove to lead the public taste towards admiring 
such pieces as The Haunted House, The Con- 
scious Lovers, Grief a la Mode, &c. &c. If a 
coarse thread is still sometimes found traversing 
the tissue of their dialogue, we feel sure it was a 
compromise between the yet unsettled taste of 
the day and the purity of that of the authors. 

During most part of the reign of King William, 

(1) See Chetwode's General History of the Stage. 



272 

the young and active in the upper orders of 
society, those who must always give the tone to 
it, were so occupied, either directly or indirectly, 
with the political and religious parties, which 
still existed in the country, that they had little 
time for the quiet amusements of literature, and 
no need of fictitious excitements. 

Whig and Tory, Papist and Protestant, were 
then designations which struck so home to the 
interests, to the honour, and even to the life of 
those distinguished by them ; so much depended 
on their triumph or defeat, and their ulterior suc- 
cess was. yet so uncertain, that every lively feeling 
of the gay and thoughtless, and every serious 
speculation of the cautious and wise, must have 
been concentrated on these subjects. They per- 
vaded the whole mass of society. Every thing 
connected with literature or the arts, and every 
trifling incident, received a colour from the party 
that was supposed to favour or to oppose it. 

Of the strong impression permanently made, 
by the circumstances of this period of our history, 
we may best judge by observing that even now, 
when Whig and Tory are become mere names 
for two modifications of political opinion, both 
admissible in our well-poised government ; when 
Papist and Protestant are become mere differ- 
ences of creed, unconnected with any political 



273 

inferences ; when the whole bearings of these 
questions are so entirely changed, that the pro- 
tection of religious toleration, now 7 claimed by 
the Whigs, was then exclusively the doctrine of 
the Tories ; that even now, the former ideas 
respecting religious differences still remain en- 
graved so forcibly on a great portion of the pub- 
lic mind. 

Taverns and coffee-houses were then the ren- 
dezvous of the men, for the discussion of business, 
as well as convivial motives, A house had been 
opened for making and selling coffee as early as 
the year 1652, by a Greek servant of Sir Nicholas 
Crisp, a Turkey merchant, whom he had brought 
to England with him. During the Protectorate, 
and probably till the Restoration, coffee-houses, 
if they were much increased in number, were 
merely places in which coffee was to be found by 
those who happened to like this new beverage. 
Immediately after the Restoration, however, they 
rapidly multiplied, and soon became the separate 
resort of societies of persons united in the same 
pursuits, or sentiments, or pleasures. 

They thus supplied the place of the various 
clubs we have since seen established. Although 
no exclusive subscription belonged to any of 
these coffee-houses, we find, by the account 
which Colley Cibber gives of his first visit to 



274 

Will's in Covent Garden, that it required an in- 
troduction to this society not to be considered 
as an impertinent intruder. There the veteran 
Dryden had long presided over all the acknow- 
ledged wits and poets of the day, and those who 
had the pretension to be reckoned among them. 
The politicians assembled at the St. James's 
coffee-house, from whence all the articles of po- 
litical news in the first Tatlers are dated. The 
learned frequented the Grecian coffee-house in 
Devereux Court. Locket's in Gerard Street 
Soho, and Pontac's were the fashionable taverns, 
where the young and gay met to dine ; and 
White's and other chocolate houses seem to 
have been the resort of the same company in 
the morning. Three o'clock, or at latest four, 
was the dining hour of the most fashionable 
persons in London ; for in the country no such 
late hours had as yet been adopted, in London, 
therefore, soon after six, the men began to 
assemble at the coffee-house they frequented, 
if they were not setting in for hard drinking, 
which seems to have been less indulged in 
private houses than in taverns. The ladies 
made visits to one another, which, it must be 
owned, was a much less waste of time, when 
considered as an amusement of the evening, 
than now, as being a morning occupation. 
Every body going out much at the same 



%J5 

time, we may suppose they were, as now, lucky 
enough often to miss each other. When they 
did not, or when they met by agreement, Qua- 
drille and Ombre were the amusement of the 
evening. Games of chance, and the high play 
at Bassette and at Loo, of which the court had 
set the example during the reign of Charles, 
ceased with his life, or took place only on New- 
year's day, while a public ball continued to be 
given at court on that festival. James and his 
Queen continued evening drawing-rooms ; and 
Queen Mary, as we see by the letters to King 
William already quoted, received her immediate 
court twice a week, and twice a week had evening 
drawing-rooms, at which she played at Ombre or 
Quadrille. After the embarrassing circumstance 
which took place at the first visit she made to the 
theatre, we are told that she avoided making a 
second, although a day had been appointed for 
that purpose ; an ill-counselled measure, which 
must have been a triumph to all the Jacobites, 
and seemed to tell the public that, according to 
the proverb, she had taken the cap that fitted 
her. " The only day her Majesty gave herself 
" the diversion of a play, and that on which she 
" designed to see another, has furnished the 
" town with discourse for near a month. The 
" choice of the play was the Spanish Fryar, 

t 2 



276 

" acted June 1689, the only play forbid by the 
" late King. Some unhappy expressions among 
" these that follow put her in some disorder, 
" and forced her to hold up her face, and often 
" look behind her, and call for her palatine and 
" hood, and any thing she could next think of; 
" while those who were in the pit before her 
" turned their heads over their shoulders, and 
" all in general directed their looks towards 
" her whenever their fancy led them to make 
" an application of what was said. ***** 
" But however the observations then made 
" furnished with talk tili something else hap- 
" pened, which gave as much occasion for 
11 discourse ; for another play being ordered to 
" be acted, the Queen came not, being taken up 
" with other diversions. " (1) 

Great societies of persons in private hoi. 
on set days, or by invitation, since distinguished 
by the names of routs, drums, or assemblies, had 
not yet commenced ; nor were balls an enter- 
tainment given by individuals, except at the 
great holidays of the church, and on occasion 
of marriages. This ceremony was conducted in 
a very different manner from what the delicacy of 



(]) Letter of Lord Nottingham. See Mc.cphcrson's M> - 
woirs, vol. ii. Appendix, p. 78. 



277 

later times has prescribed. The bride and bride- 
groom then were, or were supposed to be, among 
the gayest of their gay associates, collected to 
witness their happiness. No retirement carried 
them away from the immediate congratulations 
of their friends ; and a series of dinners, with 
every member of the families on both sides, 
followed directly the wedding-day, and kept 
them in a course of festivities which, to many 
couples, must have been a bad introduction to 
the sober dulness of their ensuing life. In the 
detailed account given in the Diary of Mr.Pepys 
of the marriage of Lady Jemima Montague, 
daughter of the first Earl of Sandwich, to Mr. 
Carteret, in 1665, the admiration he bestows 
on the extraordinary decency and gravity with 
which the whole business was conducted shows 
us how much our ideas on this subject are 
changed, and the great difference in manners, 
which then admitted of marriages " twenty times 
" more merry and jovial" (1) 



(1) After they returned from church, he says, " All sa- 
" luted her, but I did not, till my Lady Sandwich did ask 
" me whether I had saluted her or no. So to dinner ; cora- 
" pany divided, some to cards, others to talk. At night to 
" supper, and so to talk, and, which methought was the most 
" extraordinary thing, all of us to prayers as usual, and the 
" young bride and bridegroom too ; and so after prayers 

T 3 



C 2JS 

Bear-gardens and bowling-greens still supplied 
a means of gambling to the men. To the bear- 
garden we find Mr. Pepys accompanying his wife, 
and meeting other ladies there. They continued 
frequented by gentlemen even unto the days of 
Pope, who, describing two brothers of different 
habits, says, 

u y loved the senate, Hockley-hole his brother, 

" Like, in all else, as one pea's like another." 

At Hockley-hole, in the neighbourhood of 
Clerkenwell, was a sort of amphitheatre dedicated 
to bear-baiting, bull-baiting, &c. Of the amuse- 
ments of this place we may judge by the follow- 
ing advertisement in the reign of Queen Anne 
(1709) : " At the Bear-garden near Clerken- 
" well-green. This is to give notice to all gen- 
" tlemen gamesters and others, that on this 
" present Monday is a match to be fought by 



" soberly to bed, only I got into the bridegroom's chamber 
" while he undressed himself, and there was very merry 
" till he was called to the bride's chamber, and into bed 
" they went. I kissed the bride in bed, and so the curtains 
" drawn with the greatest gravity that could be, and so 
" good night ; but the modesty and gravity of this business 
" was so decent, that it was to me, indeed, ten times more 
" delightful than if it had been twenty times more merry 
" and jovial." — Pepys s Diary, vol. i. p. S57. 



279 

" two dogs, one from Newgate- market against 
" one from Honeylane-market, at a bull, for 
" a guinea to be spent ; five let- goes out of hand : 
" which goes fairest and fastest in, wins all. 
" Likewise a green bull to be baited, which was 
" never baited before ; and a bull to be turned 
" loose with fireworks all over him. Also a 
" mad ass to be baited ; with a variety of bull- 
61 baiting, bear-baiting, and a dog to be drawn 
" up with fireworks. To begin exactly at three 
" o'clock." (1) 

Newmarket, too, which had been much patron- 
ised and constantly frequented by Charles and 
his brother, was visited even by William, the 
year after the Revolution, certainly more as a 
sacrifice on his part to a popular and national 
amusement than to indulge a taste of his own, 
which could never have been cultivated in his 
earlier years. 

Among the women, the principal scenes of 
gaiety at this time, and in which they sought 
relief from the stiff' formality of London visits, 
and the sameness of eternal card-playing were 
occasional jaunts to wells and watering-places. 
Of these, Bath and Tunbridge are the only ones 
that have still preserved the reputation of their 

(1) Harleian Catalogue, 5931. in fol. 



280 

healing powers. Of the many others formerly 
in the neighbourhood of London, such as Epsom, 
Highgate, &c. all credit for their salubrity seems 
to have vanished with their fashion as a place 
of public resort. Epsom Wells, of which a half- 
destroyed row of little stunted pollards on a 
bare common now alone marks the site, was 
once a place of such gay renown as to have 
been chosen for the scene of one of the comedies 
of the day. 

Of the life of Tunbridge we have a detailed 
account in certain homely verses preserved in 
the collection calling itself " State Poems." (1) 

We are told that they repaired to the wells 
soon after break of day, then to the chapel 
as now, close by the fountain, then to smoke a 
pipe before breakfast : — 

" For this design appointed places are, 

" Lest smoking on the walks offend the fair." 

Then to breakfast on tea: afterwards a pipe is 
again mentioned, as an agreeable way of passing 
time to avoid gaming, which many do, — then to 
the market, which is described — 

" Close by the wells, upon a spacious plain. 
M Where rows of trees make a delightful lane ;" 

(1) See " Tunbridgalia. or the Pleasures of Tunbridge, by 
" Mr. Peter Causton, Merchant,'' Poems on State Affairs, 
vol. i. p. '2(T>. 



281 

and it is said to be stored with every delicacy, 
and plenty of fish from Rye. Then they again 
drink the waters, and again take a pipe, by way 
of a whet before dinner. After dinner, they go 
to bowls or nine-pins : — 

" Here 's choice of bowling-places to be seen ; 
" But Rusthall is, by far, the finest green — " 

or cards or chess are played at, or reading is 
recommended, Horace or the Bible, till the cool 
of the evening invites them out to walk ; when, 



to close the lovely scene, 



" Each night there 's constant dancing on the green. 
" Persons of highest rank stick round the ring, 
" Lustre and grace to the diversion bring, 
" While lads and lasses forth in pairs advance, 
" Music keeps time to the well-measured dance." 

The fairs held periodically in and about 
London, and the theatres, sights, and shows 
exhibited at them, were then frequently visited 
by all the best company of London. Lady 
Russell mentions her sister Lady Northum- 
berland and Lady Shaftesbury returning from 
Bartholomew fair, loaded with fairings for her- 
self and children. May fair was just about 
this time established. It commenced on the 
1st of May, and continued for fifteen days after- 



282 

wards. It was held by a grant from James the 
Second, for the benefit of Henry Lord Dover 
and his heirs for ever. But it soon became such 
a resort for the idle, the dissipated, and the pro- 
fligate, that it was presented as a public nuisance 
in the reign of Queen Anne, 1708, and finally 
abolished the next year. The ground on which 
it was held was soon covered with the buildings 
now called Shepherd's Market and its environs. 
Of the amusements of this fair while it lasted, 
we have the following account quoted in an 
extract from a MS. letter of Mr. Bryan Fair- 
fax (1) in 1701. 

" I wish you had been at May fair, where the 
" rope-dancing would have recompensed your 
" labour. All the nobility of the town were there, 
" and I am sure even you, at your years, must have 
" had your youthful wishes, to have beheld the 
" beauty, the shape, and activity of Lady Mary 
"when she danced" — (a rope-dancer, called 
the famous Dutchwoman, see Grainger's Biogra- 
phical History). " Pray ask Lord Fairfax about 



(1) Mr. Bryan Fairfax was the publisher of the Memoirs 
of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, called " Short Memorials of 
" Thomas, Lord Fairfax, tvritten by himself.'" This curious 
memoir is reprinted in " Select Tracts relating to the Civil 
" Wars in England, in the Reign of King Charles the F 
collected by Baron Maseres. and published in l s l .">. 



283 

" her, who is not the only lord by twenty who 
" was every night an admirer of her while the 
" fair lasted. (1) Then was the city of Am- 
" sterdam well worth your seeing ; every street, 
" and every individual house was carved in 
" wood, in exact proportion to one another. 
" The stadt-house was as big as your hand ; the 
" whole, though an irregular figure, yet that you 
* may guess about ten yards in diameter. Here 
" was a boy to be seen : within one of his eyes 
" was Dens mens in capital letters, as Gulielmus 
" is on half a crown ; round the other he had in 
" Hebrew 1771 ; Dllt this you must take as I did, 
" on trust. I am now drinking your health at 
" Locket's, therefore do me justice in Yorkshire." 

" B. F." 

The church must be considered at this time 
as one of the principal public places, which the 
youth of both sexes equally frequented, where 
they constantly met, and where, therefore, we 



(1) In Lord Lansdowne's Epilogue to the Jew of Venice 
is the following reference to this Lady Mary the rope- 
dancer : — 

" Tis Shakspeare's play, and if these scenes miscarry, 
" Let Gorman * take the stage or Lady Mary." 

* A noted prize-fighter. 



284 

may suppose they sometimes went as much for 
this purpose as for any other. In the Spectator 
and Guardian we find frequent mention made 
of young gentlemen first seeking to attract the 
attention, and mark their admiration of young 
ladies, by frequenting the same church, and 
placing themselves in an opposite or contiguous 
pew. The contending sects and religious dif- 
ferences which had distracted England for the 
last fifty years had put every body on the alert, 
not only as to their profession of faith, but as to 
the minute observances of the rites of their par- 
ticular church. All the young and the gay, all 
those living the most in the world, all went 
regularly to church twice every Sunday, at all 
the great festivals of the church, and on every 
prayer and every saint's day ; all those devoutly 
inclined, or wishing to be thought so, attended 
public prayers every morning and evening. 
Lent was still observed in all regular families on 
Wednesdays and Fridays, and we are now speaking 
of members of the church of England, much less 
rigid as to the observances of its followers than 
any of the sectaries. In the appendix to Reede's 
Life of Tillotson, we learn that Tillotson, while 
a young man at Cambridge during the Protec- 
torate, " generally heard four sermons every 
" Lord's day, besides the weekly lectures at 



285 

" Trin ty Church on Wednesdays (1) ;" and we 
know the uncontrolled length of the presbyte- 
rian service, and their severe observance of the 
sabbath, even unto this day. 

Shopping in the times of which we are speak- 
ing, as in our own, seems to have been called 
in aid by the female world for the occupation 
of their time. It was attended with somewhat 
more of interest and excuse than in the present 
day, where every street presents in every win- 
dow all that the varying productions of fashion 
or commerce can offer. At that time, our manu- 
factures of luxury and ornament had by no means 
attained their present excellence. France was 
then, and with much more reason than now, 
resorted to for every article of finery and orna- 
ment in dress. After the return of the Duke 
and Duchess of St. Alban's from France, in 1698, 
with a magnificent wardrobe, King William was 
importuned to prevent the importation of such 
clothes from France, to protect and encourage 
our own manufactures : but our trade to India 
then brought to England a variety of eastern 
productions which no imitations had yet rivalled, 
and to which no others could compare. The 
silks, the chintzes, the porcelain, the lacquer- 

(1) Appendix to Reede's Life of Tillotson, p. 398. 



V86 



ware, and the toys of China, were the admiration 
of Europe. When the India ships arrived in the 
Thames, it was no uncommon thing for the 
ladies to go down to Blackwall, and make pur- 
chases on board. Madame de Mazarin, we learn 
from St. Evremond, was particularly eager about 
these expeditions. The India houses often men- 
tioned in the comedies and poems of the times 
were no other than warehouses dealing in all the 
importations of China. They were in the east 
end of the town, and seem to have been the only 
retailers of these commodities. The use of tea 
was then so recent, and so confined, as to occa- 
sion no great importation of it ; it was a fashion- 
able luxury, and was only to be found at these 
India houses : there, in a back room behind the 
warehouse, a kettle was always kept boiling, to 
try the tea before it was purchased. Parties 
were common among the young and gay to these 
India houses, where raffling took place, as a 
means of disposing of some of their most costly 
articles, and of facilitating the purchase of 
others. (1) Such parties we may suppose some- 



(1) The fashion of raffling at the jewellers and great toy- 
shops continued to a much later date, as we see that Lady 
M. W. Montague says in one of her Town Eclogues, 

" At Corticelli's he the raffle won." 



287 

times served as an excuse for meetings which 
could not have taken place unobserved else- 
where. Such, at least, was the reputation ^whe- 
ther well grounded or not) which they acquired. 
In the letter of Lord Nottingham already quoted 
an account is given of Queen Mary having 
visited all these India houses, partaking of the 
raffling going on at them, and having dined at 
the house of a milliner of no good repute, as we 
are to understand by a coarse reprimand which 
is said to have been given by King William to 
the Queen for this party. (1) That the repri- 
mand was given, the broad words still admitted 
in the colloquial language of those days allow us 
to believe ; but it could only be to the preju- 
diced mind of an inveterate Tory that it could 
appear otherwise than a good-humoured and 
rather a gallant way of taking up the circum- 
stance. Had the education of women at this 



(1) " She dined at Mrs. Graden's, the famous woman in 
" the Hall that sells fine ribands and head-dresses ; from 
" thence she went to the Jews that sell India things, to 
" Mrs. Ferguson's, De Vett's, Mrs. Harrison's, and other 
" India houses. These things, however innocent in them- 
*' selves, have passed the censure of the town ; and besides 
" a private reprimand given, the King gave one in public, 

" saying to the Queen, that he heard she dined at a b 

" house, and desired the next time she went, he might go 
" too." Letter of Lord Nottingham, Macphersons Memoirs, 



288 

time been less neglected, and had their minds 
been opened to a greater variety of interests, we 
should say that the distribution of their time 
and of their lives was more likely to have con- 
tributed to the rational enjoyments of society 
than at present. Fashion had not then issued 
what a distinguished female writer has justly 
called " her most arbitrary decree," that of 
ordering every body to be present every where* 
Dissipation was not then a business, even among 
the most dissipated. The circle in which every 
one moved was so much smaller, and generally 
so much more intimate, that from society much 
might have been gained had any previous pre- 
paration made it possible. But from the com- 
pany of mere housewifes, the men soon retreated 
to their coffee-houses and taverns, and en- 
deavoured to supply by excess in wine that 
deficiency of gaiety and cheerfulness, which can 
alone be found in society, where both sexes con- 
tribute their appropriate share. The women 
were left to find occupation in their household 
business, and amusement in cards and vulgar 
gossipings on the character, conduct, and cir- 
cumstances of their neighbours. Time so spent 
must have reduced all natural abilities to nearly 
the same level : few were found below, and still 
fewer above it. Thus Swift we see accusing the 



289 

whole sex of gross ignorance, idleness, and every 
bad disposition of mind arising from them, 
although no man of his day knew so many ex- 
ceptions to his own decisions, nor so little 
deserved the credit he obtained by them. But 
Swift professing himself to be a Whig, and sell- 
ing his abilities to the Tories, and Swift treating 
with contempt the whole female sex while he 
was courting and abusing the confidence of two 
distinguished women, equally deserves that re- 
probation which his popular talents have too 
much averted from his memory. We are obliged 
to the correspondence of Swift for our better 
acquaintance with several of his female contem- 
poraries, who might have given him very different 
ideas of the sex from those he thought fit to 
entertain. Through the whole of the Journal 
to Stella, he hardly notices any woman of his 
society in London but those immediately con- 
nected with the politics of the day. As the 
families to which they belonged were Whig or 
Tory, they are called drabs, as in the case of the 
Duchess of Marlborough and her daughters; or 
they have no fault " but too much tenderness " 
of disposition, as in the case of Mrs. Masham, of 
whom this worthy Christian pastor always speaks 
well, except when she left the Queen's ear for a 
couple of days, to watch her dying child at 

u 



290 

Kensington, which he considered as an unpar- 
donable dereliction of duty. Lady Orkney he 
calls " the wisest woman he knows," because, as 
he asserts, her advice had been of use to Harley 
in his elevation to power. Except on this occa- 
sion, Lady Orkney's claim to superior wisdom 
appears to have rested on the French proverb, 
" Que c'est une brave femme qui ne fait pas 
" parler d'elle," which merit she seems to have 
possessed, even when in the difficult situation of 
the favoured friend and supposed mistress of 
King William. 

In fact, the women whom the political circum- 
stances of those times had lifted into public no- 
tice were by no means distinguished characters. 
The Duchess of Marlborough owed her power 
and celebrity, not to any natural endowments 
of her mind or understanding, which seem to 
have been of a very vulgar and ordinary 
nature, totally uncultivated by education. She 
wrote and spelt like a chambermaid. No habits 
of business nor acquaintance with the world 
gave her the means of expressing even her 
anger with dignity, and no experience of politics 
the power of looking beyond the narrow views 
of a party. The author has had access to a 
correspondence between her and the amba- 
dor Earl of Stair, in the year 1741, when he 



291 

was retired to Scotland, and she was confined to 
her house in London by infirmity. In this cor- 
respondence she marks all the virulence against 
the measures and the person of Sir Robert Wal- 
pole that she could have felt for Harley and 
Mrs. Masham, and predicts the immediate ruin 
of the country from the councils of Walpole, as 
surely as she might have been excused for doing 
at the dismissal of her own lord. She never soars 
above the view that any lady of the bed-cham- 
ber might take of the political administration of 
any country in which she had never acted a 
distinguished part. The Duchess of Marlbo- 
rough's power had consisted in the Queen's 
weakness ; the public consideration to which 
she rose, to her lord's great abilities, his ex- 
traordinary services, and his entire affection and 
confidence in her. It is worthy of remark, that 
every detail of the private life of these two 
persons, which has since been laid before the 
public, raises our idea of his character, which 
had been traduced by a powerful and triumph- 
ant faction, and sinks hers, which in fact owed 
its celebrity to the same cause. Such as she was, 
she was considerably above the level of Queen 
Anne. We are told that at her accession to 
the throne, she had already lost all sentiments of 
confidential friendship for the Duchess of Marl- 

u 2 



292 

borough. Swift says, " There was not perhaps 
" in all England a person who understood more 
" artificially to disguise her passions than the 
"late Queen." (1) If so, the cowardly trea- 
chery of her conduct was duly punished, by 
obliging her for eight years to suffer all that the 
imperious temper of the Duchess of Marlborough 
could inflict on a person no longer attached to 
her, and in whom there could in fact be no 
sympathy of feeling. The narrow, impenetrable 
understanding of Anne, and her obstinate illi- 
beral mind, absolutely required to be governed, 
but to be governed by something as near as 
possible to her own level. This she found in 
Mrs. Masham. Even Swift's subservience 
her, while the Queen's favourite, extorts little 
praise of her. Although she Beemfl al 
have obeyed the dictates of her prompter Mar- 
lev, in being very sufficiently attentive to Swift. 
But it is not among the favourites of kings or 
queens, or the dabblers in the doubtful politics 
of the day, that we are to look for those who 
redeemed their sex from the general charges 
brought against them by Swilt. With Lady 
Betty Germaine his acquaintance began when he 



(1) " Memoirs relating to the Change in the Queen's 
Ministry" Swift's Works. Scott's edition, vol. iii. p. 



293 

was chaplain to her father, Lord Berkeley, in 
Ireland, and continued uninterruptedly on her 
part, to his death. She seems to have been a 
person of excellent abilities, much liveliness, and 
capable of the most steady, disinterested friend- 
ship. Her answer to Swift's letter, basely abus- 
ing her friend, Mrs. Howard, for not, as he 
conceived, having forwarded his interest with 
Queen Caroline, is remarkable. It has the ad- 
vantage of his as much in logic, reasoning, and 
expression, as it has in sentiment and good feel- 
ing. We must regret that more of Lady Betty 
Germaine's letters are not preserved, as they all 
bear the marks of a lively, unaffected, intelli- 
gent mind ; sufficiently cultivated by education, 
and ripened by the world, and the habits of 
good company. Her steady devotion to her 
friends she had occasion to evince, in no com- 
mon manner. Lady Betty had married, not 
early in life, Sir John Germaine, the same per- 
son on whose account the Duke of Norfolk had 
obtained a divorce from his wife, Lady Mary 
Mordaunt, the daughter and heiress of an earl 
of Peterborough, uncle to him celebrated by 
Pope. This lady dying without children, left 
the whole of her estates to Sir John Germaine. 
Sir John's successes with the fair sex were cer- 
tainly owing to very different qualifications from 

u 3 



294 

those of §wift ; for he was so remarkably illi- 
terate, and oddly ignorant, that it is known he 
left by will a legacy to Sir Matthew Decker, 
a great Dutch merchant in London, who had 
written on trade, as believing him to be the author 
likewise of St. Matthew's Gospel. How much 
he wanted all early instruction on the subject of 
the inspired writers may be judged by his saying 
to his wife, after having received the sacra- 
ment, at her earnest desire, during his last ill 1 1 
" Betty, that thing you made me take has done 
" me no good." Sir John Germaine was by 
birth a native of the Low Countries. He was 
what was then called a soldier of fortune ; one 
who considered the military profession as the 
means of existence as well as of glory, and wl 
advancement depended as much on their BUC- 
cess in the world as on their military talents. 
Having left the whole of the estates that he 
received from Lady Mary Mordaunt to his 
widow, Lady Hetty Germaine, she, having no 
children of her own, bequeathed them to the 
second son of her intimate and attached friend, 
the Duchess of Dorset, on condition of his taking 
the name of Germaine, by whose descendants 
these estates are now enjoyed. 

The Duchess of Queensbury is another of 
Swift's correspondents, whose letters convey a 



$95 

high idea of her charms and superiority. The 
friendly and liberal protection which she and 
her husband the Duke of Queensbury afforded 
Gay, and their unfeigned regret at his death, 
have left an amiable picture of their hearts. 
The Duchess retained till her death, at the ad- 
vanced age of more than eighty, all the liveli- 
ness of mind and activity of person which she 
had possessed when celebrated by Prior as 
" Kitty beautiful and young." (1) The author 
of these pages remembers to have seen her 
walking with the Duke but a short time before 
her death, and remembers the lively impression 
made by her still tall, upright, active figure; 
her silver locks without powder, combed care- 
lessly about her face under a small hat, which 
did not conceal the remains of a beautiful clear 
complexion, and large, dark, animated eyes, 
partaking of no mark of age. She had always 
used the privilege of a beauty, in not observing 
the dictates of fashion in her dress. In her 
later life, her great peculiarities both of appear- 



(1) Catherine Hyde, youngest daughter of Lawrence 
Hyde, Earl of Rochester, by the Lady Harriet Boyle, fifth 
daughter of the first Earl of Burlington : she was thus grand- 
daughter to the Chancellor Clarendon, and cousin to Queen 
Anne. 

u 4 



^90 

ance and manner, and the rules she laid down 
for those admitted to her society, were respected 
and complied with by all the youngest and gayest 
persons of the day. An invitation to her balls 
was considered by them as a flattering prefer- 
ence. Had such meetings been as numerously 
attended then as at present, she would have been 
called on too often to exercise a certain figur- 
ative manner in which she indulged herself of 
clearing away guests, whom she found impor- 
tunate or remaining with her too long, — that of 
sweeping about them with the fire-broom, which 
expressed, by an image hardly to be mistaken, 
a desire to get rid of them. — Horace Walpo 
lines left on her table, on finding her out airing 
in her carriage, during one of the last \ ears of 
her life, seem to have echoed the expression of 
general feeling for her : 

" To man} Kitties Love hii 

" Docs for a day cwl:.\^ 
" But Prior's Kit' air, 

" Retains it tor an aire." 

On the whole, therefore, notwithstanding the 
abuse of Swift and the satires of Pope, we may 
rather wonder how many women at this period 
were distinguished by their worth and abilii 
and how few forced themselves into unseemly 



297 

notice, while entire idleness of mind and of time 
was still the lot of all those whose rank and 
riches placed them above the necessity of taking 
an active part in their own households. The 
long-established domestic habits of the country, 
and the influence of the new court on the fashion 
of the times, seem in some degree to have pre- 
vented idleness from realising the proverb and 
being the parent of vice. But one trial for 
divorce occurs during the reigns of William and 
of Anne — that of the Duchess of Norfolk before 
mentioned. Many circumstances of this lady's 
case show how much the ordinary habits of life 
were overstepped, and what precautions were 
thought necessary previous to such misconduct. 
A house taken at Lambeth, then a small and 
little frequented village, whose nearest communi- 
cation with Westminster was by a horse-ferry. 
This house, hired and resorted to under feigned 
names, and occupied by foreign servants, who, 
it was supposed, could not identify the lady, are 
not measures taken in a country where the 
crime they were meant to conceal was frequent. 
Thus we find no other instance of conjugal in- 
fidelity brought before parliament for seven-and- 
twenty years from the above-mentioned trial of 
the Duchess of Norfolk in 1697, to that of Lady 



298 

Annesley iu 1728, a longer interval than has 
since occurred. 

Another very distinguished female belongs to 
this period, Lady Mary Wortley Montague. (1) 
Of all her contemporaries she has left the 
greatest proofs of her claims to rank with the 
liveliest wits of her age. The embassy in which 
she accompanied her husband to Constantinople 
four years after their marriage, gave her oppor- 
tunities of knowledge and information rare to 
her sex. Her noble birth and connexions 
opened to her all society in her own country. 
Her natural abilities and literary turn made her 
seek that of its most distinguished members, 
With these she lived in a constant interchange 
of talent, while, at the same time, she was im- 
mersed by taste as well as by situation in all the 
dissipation her rank, sex, and age led to in the 
general society of the world. Her lively com- 
ments on this society in her letters to her si>Kr 
Lady Marre, prove with what a quick, observ- 
ing, intelligent eye she viewed its tollies, its 
affectations, and its weaknesses. Too happy 
had her own character entirely escaped their 

(1) She was the daughter of Evelyn Pierpont, Duke of 
Kingston, by Mary Fielding, daughter of the Earl of Den- 
bigh ; born at Thoresby in 1690, married to Edward Wort- 
ley Montague in 1712, died at the age of 72, in 1~ 



299 

contamination. Her Town Eclogues could hardly 
have been written by a person who had not par- 
ticipated in the follies she describes, and lived 
with the persons she characterizes. She ad- 
mirably marks the passing peculiarities of eva- 
nescent fashion on the unaltering stock of human 
nature. The characters in these Eclogues were 
all persons of the society in which she lived ; but 
they are treated without any coarse or cruel 
personal satire. They are the sketches of in- 
dividuals, but describe a whole species. 

The Epistle from Arthur Grey, in point of 
poetry, perhaps, the first of her works, is subject 
to the heavy charge of having justly offended an 
intimate friend, by giving additional publicity 
to an odious and offensive attempt of which she 
had been the object. A drunken footman of 
Lord Binning's had entered the bed-room of 
his sister-in-law Lady Murray (a grand-daughter 
of the first Earl of Marchmont). (1) The man 
was tried and condemned for the attempted 



(1) This lady was the daughter of George Baillie, Esq. of 
Jerviswood, and the Lady Grisell Home, the eldest of 
eighteen children of Sir Patrick Home, afterwards Earl of 
Marchmont. She left behind her a very interesting me- 
moir of the lives and characters of her father and mother, 
which, together with some explanatory matter, and a little 
notice on the life of their author, was printed lately by a 



300 

assault. Female delicacy as well as female 
sympathy should have prevented Lady Mary 
from allowing her poetical imagination to adorn 
this coarse and disgusting canvas with all the 
lively colouring of real and delicate passion ; 
and friendship should have made her desirous 



gentleman in Edinburgh, distinguished for his literary taste 
and accomplishments, and has since been published. The 
extraordinary escapes and adventures of the two families 
to which Lady Murray belonged, during their imprison- 
ment and exile in the disturbances in Scotland at the end 
of the reign of Charles the Second, would interest even in 
a romance. They are here recounted, from their own re- 
port, in the simplest and plainest language by their daugh- 
ter. The character of this daughter, from the little account 
here given of it by her editor, and by many contemporary 
testimonies, seems to have been worthy of such excellent 
parents, and to have been very justly appreciated both by 
the world and by her friends. The circumstance adverted 
to in the text had the effect that was inevitable on her inti- 
macy with Lady Mary Wortley Montague, which the latter 
was very desirous to remove, for Lady Murray was a dis- 
tinguished person in the first society of London : " Her 
" uncommon beauty, her graceful and courtly air, the fas- 
" cinating sweetness of her manners, her gaiety of temper 
" and sprightliness of conversation are traditionally remem- 
" bered." So says the well-informed editor of her memoirs. 
In the letters lately published of Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, 
there is a character of Lady Murray, traced by the hand of 
friendship, with an intensity of sorrow for her loss, honour- 
able to her who felt as well as to her who inspired such 
feeling. 



301 

of avoiding every thing that could perpetuate in 
the mind of Lady Murray any trace of so 
extraordinary and painful an adventure. More 
than female delicacy is offended in her Letter to 
Mr. Chandler. The licence of its pictures of 
supposed happiness would hardly become the 
pen of a man, and are unpardonable from that 
of a woman, in spite of all the graceful fancy 
with which they are drawn. 

Her Correspondence from Constantinople, 
the most popular of her works, will always be 
read with pleasure, notwithstanding the vast 
increase of detailed information we have since 
received on all subjects relative to that country. 
Her epistolary style has hardly been surpassed. 
A great body of her unpublished letters to 
members of her own family is still in their 
hands. It is to be hoped, instead of destroy- 
ing what at present there may be objections to 
publish, that at some future time, and under 
proper restrictions, the public may not be de- 
prived of these letters, nor the memory of their 
writer of a further claim to celebrity for various 
talents and great superiority of intellect. 

The adulatory letters of Pope to this lady, 
after making all deductions for the compliment- 
ary taste of the age', will not allow us to justify 
his subsequent abuse of a woman, whom he had 



302 



professed so to admire ; and his infirmities as 
well as his genius and her own good taste, 
should have secured him from her coarse re- 
taliation. Swift she seems wisely never to have 
admitted into her intimacy, although in her 
letters to Pope we find her admiring his wit and 
enquiring after his works. 

The whole of the latter part of Lady Mary's 
life was spent on the Continent, where the 
residences she made in various parts of Italy 
contributed to give a higher opinion of the abili- 
ties than of the conduct of her countrywomen. 
Her correspondence with her daughter the 
Countess of Bute, during this latter period, 
shows an excellent understanding improved by 
the world and by observation, and contains ad- 
mirable hints on the education of her grand- 
children. But her dryness on all subjects 
connected with the heart and feelings, and her 
complaints of the absence of all friendship in 
those with whom she lived in her several changes 
of residence, are a melancholy addition to the 
long list of proofs that nothing but the virtues 
of the heart can secure to any woman a com- 
fortable and respected existence in old age. 

Of the many eminent men who at this period 
formed a part of what has been affectedly called 
the Augusta?! age of England, none seem to 






303 

have been more distinguished for social talents 
than Lord Bolingbroke. His letters present to 
us a profoundly thinking mind, of general in- 
formation, graceful expression, and equally cal- 
culated to treat the lightest and the most serious 
subjects. His false and pernicious ideas, either 
in politics or religion, form no part of the present 
view of his character. In the inflated language 
of Johnson, speaking of his posthumous works, 
he is said " to have charged a blunderbuss 
" against the immortal happiness of mankind, 
" but wanting courage to fire it, had left Mallet 
" (his executor and editor) half a crown to draw 
" the trigger." The total neglect into which 
the philosophical discussions of Bolingbroke have 
long fallen, prove how much the zeal of Johnson 
had magnified their importance. All his con- 
temporaries, from the cynical Swift to the courtier 
Chesterfield opposed to him in party, agree in 
their opinion of his unrivalled abilities, and the 
charm of his familiar intercourse. Swift de- 
clares him to have " a strong memory, a clear 
"judgment, a vast range of wit and fancy, a 
" thorough comprehension, an invincible elo- 
" quence, with a most agreeable elocution." (1) 

(1) An Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queens last 
Ministry. Swift's Works, vol. vi. p. 7. In a letter to 



304 

Chesterfield says, " Lord Bolingbroke has both 
" a tongue and a pen to persuade ; his manner 
" of speaking in private conversation is full as 
" elegant as his writings. Whatever subject he 
" either speaks or writes upon, he adorns it with 
" the most splendid eloquence ; not a studied 
" laboured eloquence, but such a flowing happi- 
" ness of diction, which (from care perhaps at 
" first) is become so habitual to him, that even 
" his most familiar conversations would bear the 
" press without the least correction, either as 
" to method or style. If his conduct in the 
" former part of his life had been equal to all his 
" natural and acquired talents, he would most 
"justly have merited the epithet of all- 
" accomplished. * * * * And take him as he 
" now is, the character of all-accomplished ifl 



Stella of the 3d of November, 1711, he says. - I think 
" Mr. St. John the greatest young man I ever knew ; wit, 
" capacity, beauty, quickness of apprehension, good learn- 
«' ing, and an excellent taste ; the best orator of the House 
" of Commons, admirable conversation, good-nature and 
" good manners, generous, and a despiser of money. His 
" only fault is talking to his friends, in way of complaint, 
" of too great a load of business, which looks a little like 
" affectation ; and he endeavours too much to mix the 
" fine gentleman and man of pleasure with the man of 
" business." 



305 

" more his due than any man's I ever knew in 
" my life. (1) 

In the early part of his career he entered into 
all the coarse profligacy which was then common, 
and permitted, even in the highest ranks of 
society. He seems to have aimed, in the words of 
his friend Pope, 

" To shine a Tully and a Wilmot too." 

Swift often mentions in his Diary the dissipation 
and late hours of St. John preventing his seeing 
him on business. An old Mr. Mildmay, who 
died within the remembrance of many persons 
now alive, had been in his early youth appointed 
his private secretary. In a previous interview 
with St. John, he was desired by him to delay 
entering on his functions on the day at first 
proposed, because he, the Secretary of State, 
recollected that on that day he should be ex- 
ceedingly drunk. The dissipation of our time 
has at least taken a less degrading character. In 
his subsequent life, his frequent visits to France, 
and his second marriage to a niece of Madame 
de Maintenon's, had given him a familiarity with 
the language, manners, and society of the Conti- 



(1) Chesterfield's Letters, vol. ii. p. 289. 
X 



306 



nent, which began by this time to be again rare 
among the best company in England. 

Political prejudices, and fears of the dethroned 
family, again operated to alienate us from our 
nearest neighbours. The exile thought neces- 
sary of such men as Bolingbroke and Atterbury 
was not calculated to allay these fears. The 
sons of the gentry were for the most part 
educated entirely at home. To those who were 
permitted to travel, a visit to the Continent was 
hurried over, as dangerous to the young man's 
religious and political principles. Nothing but 
the astonishing powers of mind, and various 
talents recorded of St. John, could have 
allowed him, during the turbulence and agitation 
of his political life, to have continued the culti- 
vation of letters, and to have occupied himself 
with speculations so foreign to those of his ill- 
judging ambition. Perhaps no passage of his 
life places him in so amiable a light as his un- 
deviating friendship and constant affectionate 
intercourse with Swift and with Pope ; with 
Swift, after he had ceased to be the tool of his 
party ; and with Pope, who lie knew never had 
and never would be the tool of any party. Why 
the sincerity of the sentiments of these three 
distinguished persons should be doubted by their 
biographers, and reduced to a mere commerce 



307 

of vanity and compliments, can only be accounted 
for by an excess of the calculating spirit of the 
age ; a spirit which denies the existence of any 
lively sentiments not founded on direct worldly 
interests. If these worldly interests are con- 
sidered on a sufficiently enlarged basis, the author 
agrees in the opinion, that the most romantic 
friendship, wherever it may be supposed to exist, 
can be nothing more than a commerce of mutual 
benefits expressed and understood. It has been 
said only to take place between equals ; but this 
is not a fair statement ; for persons unequal 
both in mental endowments and in adventitious 
circumstances of fortune or situation, may be 
able to maintain this commerce with perfect in- 
dependence, and great mutual advantage. The 
decisions of a profoundly-thinking mind may be 
thus exchanged for the brilliant sallies of a lively 
imagination ; that knowledge of the world and of 
human nature, acquired only by penetrating and 
observing characters, for the affectionate support 
and confidence of gayer and less reflecting 
minds ; a power of arrangement and turn for 
business, for the lively animated intercourse of a 
highly- cultivated intellect, without the same 
habit of affairs : by these means securing that 
reciprocity of real services, the only equality 
which friendship absolutely requires. St. John 

x 2 



308 



thus supplied to the poetical mind of Pope the 
idea and outline of his most beautiful moral 
poem(l); andPope's society, his admiration and 
attachment to St. John, and the communica- 
tion of his works, helped, in the retirement of 
Dawley, to render more supportable his political 
disappointments, and the successes of Walpole. 
The natural infirmities of Pope, his deformity, 
and the weaknesses attendant on it, incapacitated 
him from the bustle of the world in general, and 
made him avoid society, where he was not well 
known, and where the powers of his mind had 



(1) If any one cavils at this epithet, applied to the Essay 
on Man, the following extract from the earliest of Pope's 
biographers will, it is believed, set this matter at rest with 
every candid mind, as to the intention and views of the 
author: — " Pope's Essay on Man is a real vindication of 
" Providence against libertines and atheists, who quarrel 
" with the present constitution of things, and deny a future 
" state. To these, he answers, that tvhatever is, is right; 
" and he assigns the reason, that we see only a part of the 
" moral system, and not the whole. Therefore, these irre- 
" gularities serving to great purposes, such as the future 
" manifestation of God's goodness and justice, they are 
" right. On the other hand, Lord Bolingbroke's El 
" are a pretended vindication of Providence against an ima- 
" ginary confederacy between divines and atheists. * * * * 
" In a word, the poet directs his reason against atheists and 
11 libertines, in support of religion; Lord Bolingbroke against 
"divines, in support of naturalism.' — See Rlffhead's 
Life of Pope. 



309 

not long obliterated the impression made by the 
distorted frame attached to it. Conversation 
and intercourse of friends, however, were his 
chief resource and relaxation. He loved, too, 
the society of women, although his person ab- 
solutely precluded the possibility of his inspiring 
those sentiments he may be supposed to have 
felt for them. In his intimacy with the family 
of Blount, his neighbours, during his early resid- 
ence in Berkshire, it is to be regretted that the 
sister of that family, whom he distinguished by 
his particular regard and attachment, should have 
partaken so much of the petulance felt, more 
or less, by all young women, as to the pretensions 
of those by whom they are admired. The 
doubts expressed by the late editors of Pope's 
works, as to the nature of his connexion with 
Martha Blount, it is believed, would have va- 
nished, had they seen, as the author of these 
pages has, a very melancholy and interesting 
letter from Pope to another member of the 
Blount family, lamenting that the affectionate 
regard he had always felt for all the sisters, and 
the pleasure he experienced in their society, 
seemed so little participated, and to inspire no 
return on their part. They probably had laughed 
at Martha for her conquest, and ridiculed the 
idea of a lover in the shape of Pope ; while she 

x 3 



310 

was blinded, or was insensible to the immortality 
which poetry only can bestow on a woman. 

The peculiarities of Swift, and his affected 
roughness, must have made him oftener indi- 
vidually entertaining than generally agreeable. 
His social success in England seems to have de- 
pended chiefly on his political services and re- 
nown. In Ireland, he owns to Pope having sur- 
rounded himself with persons who gave into all 
his humours, and adopted his taste for literary 
trifles and nonsense : with these he endeavoured 
to beguile his disappointed ambition, and what 
should have been, and probably was more diffi- 
cult, — the reproaches of his own conscience for 
all the domestic happiness he had destroyed for 
himself as well as for others. Whatever poli- 
tical principles he might have first imbibed, and 
whatever he might call himself, a Tory he ever 
was, in mind, character, and conduct, — a cold, 
selfish, imperious Tory. It has often been ob- 
served, that nobody is completely condemned, 
but by their own evidence ; thus, his letters to 
Stella give the clear and unequivocal means of 
judging his character and his principles, both 
in his political and private life. In his politics, 
he abandoned the party of his falling friends, the 
Whigs, when they could no longer serve him ; and 
such friends as Addison, Steele, and Garth! — 



311 

he vows vengeance against the Treasurer, Lord 
Godolphin, because he received him with cold- 
ness (1); and calls Lord Somers a "false, deceitful 
rascal," because he wrote an unsuccessful letter 
of recommendation of Swift to Lord Wharton, 
when he was lord lieutenant of Ireland. (2) His 
own account of his first introduction to Harley 
and St. John proves with what coarse and com- 
mon phrases of flattery he allowed himself to 
be attached to their rising star, and to dedicate 
his great abilities, as a party writer, to the sup- 
port of principles which he had formerly dis- 
avowed, and often to the exaltation of characters 
which his professions of morality ought to have 
taught him to condemn. In the mean time, he 
endeavours to satisfy the mean pride of his own 
mind by rough manners, and an exaction of 
much attention from his new patrons. Several 
quarrels, or rather affronts, are recorded in these 
letters, in which the apologies necessary to sa- 
tisfy his insolent disposition are always readily 
made by the ministers, who saw through the man 
they had to deal with, and were too wise to 
quarrel with weaknesses, by which they could so 



(1) Letter, September 9. 1710. 

(2) Letter, January 14. 1711. 

x 4< 



312 

easily wield his abilities to their purpose. (1) 
Sometimes he seeks to prove his independence 
by refusing to dine with the Secretary of State, 
without naming his own company : sometimes 
by giving his voice to exclude the Lord Keeper 
and Lord Treasurer Harley from a club of which 
he says, " we take in none but men of wit, or 
" men of interest ; and if we go on as we be- 
" gin, no other club in this town will be worth 
" talking of." This club was, as he tell us, 
" among other things, to advance conversation and 
" friendship, and the members were to call one 
" another, in place of all other titles, ■ Brother.' " 
In March 1712, when Swift was lodging in 
Suffolk-street, the house of one of these brothers, 
that of Sir William Wyndham in the Haymar- 
ket, was burnt to the ground. His wife, the 
Duke of Somerset's daughter, escaped bare- 
footed j two female servants were killed on the 
spot by jumping out of the windows ; and the 
loss of the house, and all destroyed in it, was not 
less to his brother Wyndham than ten or twelve 
thousand pounds. During this terrible accident 
the kind-hearted, friendly brother Swift, after 
having learnt (as he tells us) where the fire was, 



(1) Letter, January 14-. 1711. beginning, « Mr. Harley 
" desired me to dine with bim to-day." 



313 

quietly turned himself to sleep again, although 
the noise and confusion in the neighbourhood 
was such as to have awakened his servant, and 
the people of the house where he lodged. But 
what could be expected from a man, who from 
his earliest youth had betrayed, in all the social 
relations of life, a character of irreclaimable, 
selfish pride and hard-heartedness ; who seems to 
have mistaken a tyrannical for an independent 
spirit, and insolence of manner for dignity of 
mind ; who, while invariably pursuing a system 
of self-interest and self-indulgence with respect 
to others, captiously resents the slightest mark 
of neglect to himself. However we may allow 
the straitened circumstances of his infancy and 
early education to have soured his humour, and 
distempered his first views of human life, his 
residence with Sir William Temple, which, with 
some short interruptions, lasted for nearly eleven 
years, ought essentially to have improved his 
character and manners, as well as his abilities. 
But his proud, unsubmitting, selfish spirit seems 
never to have forgiven the noviciate of the 
acquaintance. Thepolished manners and ripened 
judgment of Sir William Temple were at first 
shocked by the unaccommodating and assuming 
pretensions of a young man, who could not yet 
have proved his title to any such indulgence. 



314 

On further acquaintance, he appears to have 
done ample justice to his merits, and during the 
latter years of their association he certainly pro- 
cured for Swift advantages which he could hardly 
otherwise have obtained, and which, gifted as he 
was by nature, were perhaps of all others the 
greatest which, at his time of life, he could have 
received ; yet still dissatisfied with Sir William's 
endeavours to serve him while he lived, and dis- 
appointed in his pecuniary expectations at his 
death, Swift seems to have retained a rancorous 
hatred to all his family, which breaks out when- 
ever the name of Lady Gifford (Sir William's 
sister) is mentioned in his correspondence. With 
this Lady Gifford lived the mother of Stella, the 
widow of a merchant in London, and her two 
daughters ; for such was their father, as we are 
assured by the last and best of Swift's biogra- 
phers : she was in a situation which seems to 
have been something between that of a friend 
and a humble companion. To one of her 
daughters, Swift, while yet an inmate in Sir 
William Temple's family, became attached ; and 
no other objection could probably have ever 
been made to their union, had he proposed it, 
but the young man not yet possessing the means 
of subsistence. When, at the age of thirty-three, 
he was established in Ireland as vicar of Laracor, 



315 



he seduced this daughter, not eighteen years old, 
away from her mother and sister, and the honour- 
able protection under which they lived, to follow 
him to Ireland. She was accompanied by a 
person of the name of Dingley, several years 
older than herself, and though a distant relation 
of the Temple family, in the same sort of sub- 
ordinate situation. This seduction, for the word 
must surely be applied to the heart and affections, 
as well as to the person, could only have been 
effected, and could only have been consented to 
by the mother, under an express understanding 
with Swift, as well as a perfect confidence in his 
honour, that a marriage was to take place as soon 
as his circumstances admitted of it. Stella was 
this deceived, unhappy woman, who seems in 
every respect, both of mind, character, and per- 
son, to have deserved a better fate. She was 
retained till her death in Ireland by the fallacious 
hope of every day becoming the wife of him, 
who, although fifteen years older than herself, 
had possessed himself of her earliest affections : 
indeed, had his conduct estranged them, the 
unprotected situation, and the equivocal light in 
which that situation must necessarily have been 
viewed in Ireland, made her entirely dependent 
on his will. In one instance she appears to have 
been desirous, even at the expence of her feel- 



316 

ings, to have emancipated herself from a thral- 
dom, which, whatever blandishments vanity 
might have thrown around it, must have been 
repugnant to any noble mind. A very respect- 
able clergyman of the name of Tisdale wished 
to marry her, and, with a confidence which he 
basely betrayed, made Swift his mediator with 
Stella. No sooner did her cold-hearted tyrant 
find she was about to recover her liberty, than 
he overwhelmed his rival with every kind of 
ridicule, and found means, under a specious show 
of disinterestedness, so to calumniate him to the 
mind of Stella, that she felt herself obliged to 
give up, or had not the resolution to prosecute 
this only means of independence. She had 
already remained nine years in Ireland, subject 
to the arbitrary will of the most arbitrary of 
characters, without either the public respect, or 
the internal sense of duty, which as his wife 
might have soothed such a situation. Every 
expectation disappointed, and every feeling un- 
gratified, except her vanity, if complimentary 
verses, and childish expressions of an affection 
failing in all its real dictates, could gratify it, 
Swift, after having repeatedly left his victim in 
Ireland, whilst he sought his own personal ad- 
vancement and interests in London, was sent 
thither (as is known) in the year 1?10, deputed 



317 

by the clergy of Ireland to obtain from Queen 
Anne's government the remission of certain 
duties and rights on them. Here a new scene 
opened to his ambition, and his talents were 
called forth in the manner of all others in which 
they were the most available, as a party writer 
to a new administration. During this absence, 
prolonged to three years, he continued to write 
constantly and uninterruptedly to Stella ; and 
we see in the course of this very curious journal 
how rapidly he advances in his high opinion of 
himself, and his contempt and hatred for the 
rest of mankind. It must have been a con- 
siderable relief to him, to pour into a partial and 
patient ear every feeling of his selfish, haughty 
mind. The poor deceived Stella meanwhile was 
by this detailed and regular correspondence 
confirmed in the hope that his successes and 
fame in England were advancing their union, 
wherever his lot might afterwards be cast. The 
encouragement of this self-deception was doubly 
necessary on his part, as, during the first year of 
his establishment in London, he became the 
intimate of a family, where he soon gave Stella 
a rival in wretchedness, if not in his affections. 
Let it be here remarked, to the honour of the 
female sex, that great talents have almost always 
been irresistible, in securing the attachment of 



318 



women. With Swift they were certainly unac- 
companied by any personal graces or softness of 
manner. He was coarse and abusive to all 
women who did not particularly ple?se him, or 
on whom his interest did not particularly depend. 
We must suppose that to those he wished to 
please, the charm consisted in the belief that he 
excepted them from the odium he cast on the 
rest of their sex ; while, in fact, submission to all 
his petty pretensions, and some lucky conciliation 
of his inordinate and vulgar pride, seem to have 
been the chief passes to his favour. 

Miss Vanhomrigh, unfortunately known to the 
world by the name of Vanessa, was both to a 
station of life and of a personal character very dif- 
ferent from that of Stella. Her father, origin- 
ally a merchant at Amsterdam, had been em- 
ployed in the commissariat of the troops of King 
William in Ireland. Two daughters by the 
death of their brothers inherited his fortune, and 
lived with their widowed mother in London, 
when Swift came there in 1710. Vanessa could 
not then have been twenty, for in August lyil 
he mentions her being come of age, and intend- 
ing to go to Ireland to look after the property 
her father had left there. To this young per- 
son Swift appeared in the zenith of his glory ; 
his works, and his wit, the dread of one party, 



319 

the support of the other, and the admired of all ; 
himself treating with affected contempt what 
the rest of the world envied, and with calculated 
rudeness the advances of those whom the rest 
of the world sought: no wonder that his so- 
ciety and his attentions made a strong impres- 
sion on a young and ardent mind, possessed of a 
great desire of knowledge, already more accom- 
plished than was common to her age, and with 
much aptitude for improvement. Of this im- 
pression, Swift, at the ripened age of forty-two, 
must have been early aware; and whatever may 
have been the supposed insuperable objections 
to his union with Stella, his encouraging the 
feelings, and giving way to his own selfish in- 
dulgence and flattered vanity in his intercourse 
with Vanessa, is equally unjustifiable to her, to 
Stella, and, above all (as his editors would give 
us to understand), to himself. These editors, we 
must be allowed to observe, have all treated his 
character, as to the circumstances of his private 
life, with a degree of partiality which reminds 
us of the fable of the lion, described in a pic- 
ture as subdued in single combat by a man. 
Had the lions been painters, says the fable, the 
story would have been differently represented : 
perhaps, in the present case, and for the same 
reason, misrepresentation may be suspected in 



320 



the author of these pages. The correspondence 
which has luckily been retrieved with Vanessa 
will, it is believed, bear out all, and more than 
all that has been said of his cruelty and her in- 
nocence. But whatever impression may be left 
of the general character and conduct of Swift 
in his private life, let at least the weaker sex re- 
member, and rest satisfied, that the great object 
of his wishes and ambition — a settlement in Eng- 
land, and an English bishopric — were defeated 
not by the Tale of the Tub (1), or any other va- 
grant effusions of his wit, but by the weak arm of a 
woman — by that sex to whom retributive jus- 
tice owed and committed his punishment. 

With the Duchess of Somerset he had no ac- 



(1) " The project for the advancement of religion, pub- 
" lished in 1709, made a deep and powerful sensation on 
" all those who considered national prosperity as connected 
" with national morals. It may, in some respects, be con- 
•' sidered as a sequel of the humorous argument against 
" abolishing Christianity, &c. It was very favourably re- 
" ceived by the public, and appears to have been laid before 
" the Queen by the Archbishop of York (Sharpe), the very 
" prelate who had denounced to her private ear the sup- 
"posed author of the Tale of a Tub." — Scott's Life of 
Swift, vol. i. p. 105. So that we see it was not this arch- 
bishop, of whom Swift always speaks with the virulence of 
an irreconcilable enemy, nor the Queen's opinion previous 
to his attack on the Duchess of Somerset, which were the 
real obstructions to his preferment in England. 



321 

quaintance ; he knew her only by dreading her 
influence with the Queen against the measures 
of the Tory ministry at the opening of parliament 
in 1711. Her he attacked in a manner which 
no party feelings could justify, and hardly Chris- 
tian charity forgive. By the extraordinary cir- 
cumstances in which this great heiress had been 
placed in early youth, when she could scarcely 
be said to have a choice, and still less a will of 
her own, she was twice married, and twice a 
widow, before she was fifteen years old. Of the 
poisoning her first husband Lord Ogle, and of the 
assassination of her second, Mr. Thynne, Swift 
in no measured terms accuses her of being an 
accomplice. (1) There are few persons, it is 
believed, but will allow, that such an accusation, 
brought forward at such a moment in the form 
of political verses, by a most popular political 
writer, and likely to be in the hands of all the 
world, was a very sufficient cause for the indig- 
nant feelings of the person so vilely traduced; 
that the author of such a scandal, having con- 
victed himself of the unchristian charges of 
" envy, spite, malice, and all uncharitableness," 
justified the Duchess of Somerset in powerfully 



(1) See Windsor's Prophecy, vol. x. p. 379. Swift's Works, 
Scott's edition. 



322 

exerting that influence over the Queen which 
her traducer so much dreaded ; it rendered abor- 
tive all attempts of the ministry, to whom he 
had thus prostituted his talents, to effect his 
establishment in England. 

In Ireland, the farther prosecution of the pu- 
nishment due to him from the female sex con- 
demned him to survive, while yet in the vigour of 
life, both the victims of his cold-hearted selfish- 
ness. It is evident that had his ambitious views 
succeeded, poor Stella would never have been his 
wife. Whether he would have submitted to re- 
move by marriage the slur which his contempt- 
ible vanity induced him to cast on the reputa- 
tion of Vanessa, must remain in the same uncer- 
tainty which involves his inexplicable and unprin- 
cipled cruelty in not avowing his tardy union 
with the dying Stella. 

More than enough has perhaps been said on 
this subject, after the just and admirable view of 
which the public are already in possession of 
Swift's conduct, both in a political and social 
light, in the Edinburgh Review of the last edi- 
tion of his works. The author of that Review, 
with the energy inspired by sound principles 
both of political and moral feeling, has com- 
pletely stripped M the gilding off a knave; 91 a 
gilding which nothing but the popular nature of 



328 

his works, and the moment of political agitation 
in which they appeared, could have preserved so 
xong ; and the impartial judgment of posterity 
will confirm the critic's assertion, " That, what- 
" ever merits Swift might have as a writer, he 
" was despicable as a politician, and hateful as a 
" man."(l) 

Of the charm of Addison's society even Swift 
himself bears record. (2) But the extreme de- 
licacy of Addison's taste, and his want of 
promptitude of decision, even in the choice of 
words, must have been an impediment to the 
excellence of his general conversation, as it was 
to his talents in public business. 

It sometimes happens, that writers the most 
distinguished by the liveliness and brilliancy of 
their pen, have by no means supported the same 
character in their social intercourse. But Con- 
greve, we know, was not less superior in his own 
colloquial powers than in those he bestowed on 
the characters of his inimitable comedies. The 
good company in which he lived, and his own 
good taste, purified his conversation from that 

(1) Edinburgh Review, No. liii. p. 44. 

(2) " Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undis- 
" puted, and I believe if he had a mind to be chosen king, 
" he would hardly be refused."— Journal to Stella, Oct. 10. 
1710. 

Y c 2 



324 



profligacy and coarseness of expression which 
still remained the received language of the stage. 
That the admirable wit and profound knowledge 
of human character which dictated his comedies 
should have been expressed in this language, is 
the more to be regretted as it degrades the tone 
of his satire, and is apparent to those incapable 
of comprehending either the wit of his allusions 
or the philosophy of his wit. 

The dramatic works of Steele, his private 
letters, and the Ta tiers, leave a very agreeable 
impression of the character of their author. 
Unfortunately, in the conduct of his own affairs 
he seems to have been both unwise and unlucky. 
By his own careless extravagance, and his wife's 
over-attention on the subject of money, he ap- 
pears to have been always leading a life of shifts 
and expedients, which, however they may favour 
literary exertions, are very incompatible with 
social enjoyment. 

Prior's admirable verses betray sometimes 
a coarseness of thought, and sometimes of ex- 
pression, which, without any reproach to his ge- 
nius, must be attributed to the first impressions 
of early youth ; to the company he must inevi- 
tably have kept, before his talents had raised him 
from a situation to which he so soon proved him- 
self superior. When placed by his abilities in the 



325 



society of* princes and ministers, bis tastes and 
his affections remained nearer the level of his 
former fortunes. The secretary to the pompous 
embassy of Bentinck (1), the minister at Ver- 
sailles negotiating the peace of Utrecht, was 
still the faithful admirer of the butcher's wife in 
Middle-row, whom he propitiated in verses, of 
which the coarsest parts were probably above the 
level of her taste. 

Gay seems to have been the beloved child of 
the knot of superior spirits with whom he lived. 
Their character never appears in a more amiable 
light than in their feelings for Gay; in the 
anxiety they showed to further his interests, 



(1) The embassy of the Earl of Portland to France, in 
1698, cost 80,000/. He was accompanied by six young 
lords and three gentlemen, besides Prior as secretary to the 
embassy. His public entry into Paris, on the 27th Fe- 
bruary, was more magnificent than any thing that had been 
seen since the Duke of Buckingham in Charles the First's 
time. He was attended by a gentleman of the horse, 
twelve pages, fifty-six footmen, twelve led horses, four 
coaches with eight horses, and two chariots with six. He 
received every sort of respect and attention from Louis the 
Fourteenth, and returned loaded with presents ; but it was 
remarked, that no embassy had been more honoured or less 
successful in its objects, as it neither obtained the removal 
of King James from the neighbourhood of Paris, nor any 
mitigation of the persecutions of the Protestants. — See 
Harris's History of King William, p. 463. 

Y 3 



326 



and the manner in which they praised, criticised, 
and rejoiced in the success of his works. 

It has been remarked with great truth, by a 
late distinguished writer on the principles of 
taste, " That corruption in the fine arts and ex- 
" travagancies in dress have generally accompa- 
" nied each other ; but that literature never mani- 
" fested any symptoms of sympathy with either. 
" From the middle of the seventeenth to the 
" middle of the eighteenth century the fashions 
" in dress were carried to the utmost extreme 
"of deformity; and imitative art sunk to its 
" lowest state of degradation, at the same time 
" that taste in literary composition, both in 
" England and France, attained a degree of 
" purity and perfection only surpassed by that 
" of the finest ages of Greece or Rome." (1) 
The age of Queen Anne would seem to justify 
this remark ; for at no other time was painting, 
sculpture, and architecture at a lower ebb. 
It was not as in the days of Leo, that 

" A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung :" 

although Pope, it must be confessed, was as 
superior to Vida as Raphael was to Sir Godfrey 
Kneller. In female dress, in furniture, in e\ery 

(1) Knight on Taste, p. , 



327 

species of ornament, amenable to the laws of 
taste, nothing could be further removed from 
those forms which we have since found we can 
neither rival nor improve. The enormous wigs 
of the men, their stiffened coats, long waist- 
coats, short breeches, and rolled stockings, were 
infinitely less consonant with grace, and de- 
formed the human figure much more than the 
cloak, ruff, close doublet, and trunk hose of the 
preceding age. The long stays, small hoops, 
stiff silk gowns, and boot sleeves of the women 
were so ungraceful, that their painters, Jervis 
and Kneller, changed them entirely into that 
indescribable robe in which they are in all their 
portraits more or less enveloped, and which 
nothing but the art of their brush could suspend 
for a moment on any human body. 

Sculpture produced only those heavy-headed 
cherubim, cumbrous angels, and periwig-pated 
portraits, which loaded the walls of Westminster 
Abbey, and in our provincial cathedrals and 
parish churches ill contrasted with the altar- 
tombs of a former age, on which repose the 
knight and his lady side by side, in the dress, 
and with the features they wore in life — a 
Vandyke portrait admirably executed in marble. 

Architecture assumed a strange, anomalous 
style, unknown to any age or nation where a 

y h 



328 

high state of cultivation had produced ornament 
in building. The huge masses of stone or brick 
raised at this period, and during the reigns of 
the two first Georges, are for the most part 
without any attempt at ornament, except some 
uncouth, non-descript flourishes over the door 
and middle window of the edifice. The only 
prevalent idea of the builders seems to have 
been a number of windows, small in their pro- 
portions, and multiplied when an effect of gran- 
deur was intended to be produced ; an absence 
of all projections and salient angles, that could 
effect any charm from light and shadow, or any 
comfort from a wide overhanging roof, or the 
shelter of a porched door. The genius of Van- 
burgh soared above his age ; the proportions of 
Grecian architecture were not then familiar to 
artists ; he swerved from all Roman models, 
and formed to himself a style, which, when ex- 
amined by the rules of his art, transgresses 
them all ; but when viewed as a whole in the 
great buildings he erected, produces an effect 
which could only have been calculated by a su- 
perior and original genius. Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, with the eye of a painter, sagaciously ob- 
serves, that Vanburgh was particularly careful 
to make such accompaniments and back-grounds 
to his buildings, as gave them effect, and avoided 



329 

their rising crudely out of the ground, like many 
of our admired country seats, from a bald, 
smooth-shaven lawn. Hence his great substruc- 
tures, flights of steps, and balustrades, and, below 
them, terraces ornamented with architectural 
sculpture, vases, pedestals, and the like. The 
eye thus became familiar with ornament before 
it met all that he lavished on the edifice whose 
character was intended to be magnificence. 
Blenheim and Castle Howard prove how well 
their architect succeeded in that intention. 



330 



CHAPTER VII. 

IGNORANCE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF LOUIS THE FOUR- 
TEENTH. THEOLOGICAL DISPUTES. SUSPICIONS OF 

POISON. MADAME DE BRIN VILLIERS. JESUITS AND 

JANSENISTS. VOLTAIRE. REGENT'S GOVERNMENT 

HURRIED ON THE REVOLUTION. — CONDUCT OF THE 
FRENCH NOBILITY AND OF THE POPULAR PARTY AT 
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. — STATE OF THE 
PUBLIC MIND IN EUROPE. ROUSSEAU, EFFECTS PRO- 
DUCED BY HIS WRITINGS IN FRANCE. ABSENCE OF 

ALL REGARD TO MORAL TRUTH. MADAME DU CHA- 

TELET. ST. LAMBERT. MADAME DE GRAFIGNY. 

MADAME D'EPINAY, HER SOCIETY, ROUSSEAU'S CON- 
DUCT IN IT. MADAME d'hOUDETOT. 

The government of Louis the Fourteenth, and 
of his immediate successor, seems to have been 
quite insensible to the progress made by the 
human mind during his reign, and to the natural 
tendency of all the enterprise and activity excited 
by it. They seem to have thought they could 
arrest both at pleasure, and while in fact a flood 
of light was pouring in from every point of the 
intellectual compass, they endeavoured to pre- 
vent any portion of its rays from falling on the 



331 

subjects most seriously interesting to the civil 
existence of man. 

All the quickness, industry, and enthusiasm 
which we have since seen produce such astonish- 
ing effects when employed on subjects worthy 
of them, were then alike shut out from the dis- 
cussion of politics, of government, of every use- 
ful speculation in the philosophy of human life. 
The active, when not engaged in war, were con- 
demned to a dangerous idleness. The studious 
were too often obliged to waste their talents in a 
futile literature, in disputes on the merits of a 
sonnet, or the legitimacy of a verse, or to bewilder 
themselves in controversial learning on abstract 
points of faith, incomprehensible differences in 
the creeds and precepts of the church, or of 
forms and etiquettes in her ceremonials. Hence 
an Andilly (1), whose great talents and prolonged 
life might have enlightened his contemporaries 
in grammar and logic, left behind him 104 vo- 
lumes, not one of which has added a line to the 
stock books of European literature. Hence the 
keen powers of reasoning and admirable humour 
of a Pascal were wasted on a subject long since 
condemned to oblivion ; and (having been exerted 
for party, and not for general interests) have lost 

(1) Antoine d' Andilly. 



332 

much with posterity. Hence the elegant mind 
and varied powers of a Fenelon are scarcely 
known, but by a romance, in the composition 
of which his intellect sought repose from subjects 
less naturally interesting to him, but to which 
his profession, and the age in which he lived, 
condemned him to confine his studies. 

It would be difficult to imagine how inane 
disputes, worthy of the darkness of the middle 
ages, could yet occupy any part of the talents of 
a nation already distinguished by its learning 
and literature. But we invariably observe that 
where the existence of public spirit is repressed 
by the institutions of the country, or by the 
rights of its inhabitants being ill defined, F esprit 
de corps reigns with uncontrolled intensity, in 
defiance both of reason and of truth. " La 
" communaute d'interets donne de la valeur a 
" des passions qui seroient nulles dans leur 
" isolement; et le gouvernement s'etonne d'une 
" resistance qu'il a cree lui-meme." (1) Hence 
the eternal quarrels of the clergy and parliaments 
of France during the latter part of the reign of 
Louis the Fourteenth and the regency, through 
a long succession of nonsensical disputes on 



(1) Le Montey, p. 404. 



333 



Jansenism, Molinism, Quietism, on the Bull 
Unigenitus, the constitution, and the billets de 
confession. 

The lamentable ignorance of the King, and 
his consequent want of all enlargement of mind, 
subjected him to the prejudices of the times as 
entirely as would have been the case with a 
more ordinary understanding and character. 
His want of all information on religious subjects, 
which even Madame de Maintenon avows and 
laments, made him a dupe to the insinuations of 
the priests about him. The Jesuit le Tellier 
persuaded him that the doctrines of Jansenism 
were unfriendly to his absolute authority. In- 
stead of crushing the disputes between the 
Jesuits and Jansenists by the arm of power, as 
he had in his earlier years the pretensions of the 
noblesse against his authority ; his scruples en- 
couraged their virulence, and allowed them to 
fill the prisons with persons accused of Jan- 
senism. Even Bossuet, the great Bossuet, con- 
descended to make use of the same means to 
frighten the King, representing the mystical 
nonsense of the enthusiast Madame Guyon(l) 



(1) Madame Guy on, the head of the sect of Quietists, 
was of Montargis, left young the widow of Guyon, the per- 
son who had undertaken the construction of an inland navi- 



384 

as dangerous to the state, and a pious work of 
the elegant and accomplished Fenelon as so 
heretical, that the poor deceived King wrote him- 
self to Pope Innocent the Eleventh, to press his 
decision on a book(l) which is only known to 
posterity by the circumstance of a papal censure 
having fallen on any writing of its pure and pious 
author. 

An ignorance of the true principles of that 
Christian faith which they all professed, and all 
disgraced, had led to these endless disputes of the 
clergy. A still greater ignorance on all subjects 
of natural philosophy, and of experimental che- 
mistry, and medicine connected with it, produced 
a strange and remarkable anomaly in the man- 



gation at Briaire. She was good-looking, and had some 
fortune. Her confessor, a Barnabite monk from Anneci, 
near Geneva, encouraged her romantic disposition to mys- 
ticity, and she aimed at being a second St. Therese. Her 
name and adventures would probably have been soon for- 
gotten in France had she not been the means of creating 
dissension between Bossuet and Fenelon. 

(1) Les Maximcs des Saints. In thirty-seven conferences 
at Rome, thirty-seven propositions extracted from this work 
were judged erroneous by a majority of voices, and a brief 
from the Pope, declaring this sentence, published in Rome 
March, 1699. Fenelon, instead of defending himself, and 
making to himself a great party by his persecution, sub- 
mitted to the sentence, and publicly, in his pulpit, agreed in 
the condemnation of his book. 



335 

tiers of a court which boasted of an amenity and 
refinement unknown to other nations. In the 
midst of this court, whose occupation was plea- 
sure, in the most brilliant period of the reign of 
Louis the Fourteenth, and among the persons 
forming his immediate society, suspicions of 
poison, the basest of crimes, became familiar, 
and accusations of attempting it frequent. 

This can only be accounted for by the universal 
ignorance which invited fools to seek, knaves 
to administer, and the government to punish 
with disgraceful eclat, preparations, potions, 
and secrets to create love, to avoid old age, to 
cure irremediable ills, to restore faded charms, 
renew exhausted strength, and arrest passing 
enjoyments. During the turbulence and crimes 
of the sixteenth century, poison had doubtless 
been often employed to remove importunate 
claimants to rich successions, or to gratify private 
vengeance. The supposed security of the mur- 
derer, and the insufficiency of strength or courage 
against such an enemy, had recommended it to 
the weak in that age of violence, and the fashion 
of the crime (if the expression be allowable) 
might not be quite passed away in the times of 
which we are speaking. Madame de Brinvilliers, 
at the instigation and with the assistance of her 
Italian lover, was doubtless guilty of many of the 



336 

murders laid to her charge. But many of the 
persons who were accused of consulting her were 
probably guilty of nothing but the enormous 
folly of believing that an ignorant and profligate 
woman possessed powers which no science could 
procure, and no mortal delegate. 

The different character assumed in different 
ages by the professors in supernatural cures, and 
in secrets unknown to the scrutinising eye of 
experimental philosophy, is worthy of remark. 

In the age of Madame de Brinvilliers, pre- 
tenders to occult sciences courted the suppo- 
sition of their dealings with the devil, and allowed 
it to be understood that their purchase of super- 
natural powers at the expence of their own 
souls in the next world, should enhance the 
price of their services to their friends in this. 

But the empirics of the next age, so far from 
dealing in poisons and receiving their com- 
missions from the devil, had nothing but piety 
and purity in their mouths. With no less bold- 
ness than their predecessors, they asserted that 
all their powers were derived from superior 
virtues, from intensity of meditation, and from 
universal benevolence. The Grahams, the 
Mesmers, the Cagliostros of the last fifty yea in 
took a directly contrary way to arrive at the 
same point of imposition on the credulous. 



337 

At the time that the courts of Rome and 
France were still bewildering themselves in end- 
less disputes and interminable negotiations on 
unintelligible subjects, arose the financial system 
of Law, which at once calmed all differences by 
turning the morbid activity whiqh chiefly occa- 
sioned them to speculations of gain ; and the 
system of Law at once did more than bishops, 
cardinals, the Pope, and Louis the Fourteenth, 
had been able to effect, by uniting Jesuits and 
Jansenists in one common pursuit. 

The Regent's government had hurried on the 
fate of France beyond the natural and inevitable 
progression of circumstances. His unbridled pro- 
fligacy had loosened every moral restraint, and his 
weak belief that there was a royal way to national 
wealth, a short cut which left both industry and 
economy far behind, not only precipitated the 
ruin and confiscation of the national resources, 
but completed that of the honour and moral 
character of the people. The natural riches 
and the natural cleverness and activity of that 
people soon succeeded in restoring the country 
to its natural and unalienable wealth ; but from 
their moral degradation the upper orders never 
recovered. When the bubble of imaginary 
riches burst, the warfare of fanaticism was re- 
commenced with new virulence and with new 

z 



338 

follies ; and that both parties might be equally 
blameable, both Jansenists and Jesuits began to 
work miracles in the cure of diseases. 

The power of the Jesuits, however, declined 
with that of le Tellier at the death of Louis the 
Fourteenth. And the Convahionaires at the 
tomb of a priest in the church-yard of St. 
Medard were the last efforts of the spirit of 
Jansenism among the people. (1) The almost 
worn-out and threadbare fanaticism of polemical 
divinity, which had been the subject of some of 
the most disgraceful pages in the history of 
man, had served at the same time to awaken 
the intellects of an ignorant world, and to 
sharpen the wits of those whose swords w 
not employed in cutting the throats of each 
other for private interests or individual ven- 
geance. This fanaticism, which, during a great 
part of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, had 



(1) Towards the end of Queen Anne's reign, there ap- 
peared in England a number of* fanatics who pretended to 
(and probably thought they poneased) the gift of prop! 
They used to assemble in Moorfields and exercise this 
gift, surrounded by crowds of idle and curious people. 
They were suppressed by the wise conduct of the govern- 
ment towards them. Instead of dispersing them by i 
or taking them up, Powel, the master of a celebrated pup- 
pet-show, was desired to make Punch turn prophet, which 
he did with such success as soon to silence his competitors. 



339 

begun to assume a political character, and to 
designate parties in the state almost as much as 
sects in the church ; this fanaticism, within 
seventy years afterwards, gave way at once to 
the fanaticism of liberty, which, like all errors 
founded on true principles, went much further 
astray than the one it supplanted. The first had 
been long estranged from all the pure and incon- 
trovertible truths of Christianity, and retained 
no hold but on the weakness and vindictiveness 
of man ; while the second originated in all that 
ennobles and elevates his character. 

At the moment when the human mind in 
France was undergoing this essential change 
in its principle of action ; when recovered from 
its blind adoration of the despotism of Louis 
the Fourteenth by the mortifications and by 
the misgovernment of his latter years ; when, 
loosened from its former prejudices, it began to 
regard the past with contempt, and the future 
with confidence, a genius started forward, sin- 
gularly fitted to lead the way, and to advance 
his followers in the vast career of mind and 
intellect which his writings opened to them. 

The talents of Voltaire were as peculiarly fa- 
voured by the age and circumstances in which 
he appeared as those of Louis the Fourteenth 
had been half a century before. The difference 

z 2 



340 

in the manners of the nation, and in the fashions 
and the splendour of the court, was not greater at 
the commencement of his reign and at his death 
than was the difference of the national mind 
and ways of thinking, as Voltaire found and 
as he left them. Both the monarch and the au- 
thor reigned absolutely over the opinions and 
character of the people and of the period to 
which they belonged. Both injured themselves 
by an attempt at universal sway. To both a 
long age of glory was allowed, which both 
sullied in their latter years : the one by listening 
to the dictates of a narrow-minded bigotry, 
which led him to measures of individual perse- 
cution and national calamity ; the other, by his 
insatiate thirst for praise betraying him into un- 
worthy and dishonest means of acquiring that 
which he already possessed in an unexampled 
degree. " L'amour de la gloire ne l'arlran- 
" chissoit d'aucune inquietude de la vanite (1) ;" 
and this vanity gave bun an excessive and ever 
increasing irritability against literary adversaries, 
whose insignificance was only brought into ob- 
servation by his notice. 

The combat between the institutions and the 
opinions of France, which may be said to have 

(1) Histoire du Dixhuitieme Siecle. torn. iii. p. 68. 



341 

begun with Voltaire, were brought to an issue 
by his genius. Had that genius been of a less 
general and less popular nature, and had his 
moral principles been of a severer cast, exile, 
persecution, and punishment would have im- 
mediately followed the first enunciation of his 
political and religious opinions. 

But while he showed himself so superior, so 
brilliant, and often so just in his views of the 
great subjects most interesting to humanity, his 
dramas charmed and enlightened those yet in- 
capable of more serious instruction. The laxity 
of many of his lighter works, and the often, 
profligate displays of his wit, assimilated him to 
the frivolous world over which his astonishing 
genius soared, although unable ever entirely to 
purify itself from the stains of the age to which 
it belonged. Thus, in recording Cardinal Albe- 
roni's plans, and the Duchesse de Maine's con- 
temporary plot during the Regency, Voltaire 
evidently writes to produce effect. He could 
neither believe in the magnitude of those 
plans, nor in the probability of their success. 
In the history of any other country, or any 
other period, instead of talking seriously of the 
Duchesse de Maine's conspiracy, he would have 
laughed at the idea of carrying off a first prince 
of the blood, the regent of the kingdom 5 and 

z 3 



342 

would have asked, what they were to do with 
him — what they were to do with themselves, if 
they had succeeded? But Voltaire had been 
brought up in the midst of these ridiculous in- 
trigues, had been long admired at the court of 
Sceaux, and felt that partiality for the follies 
of his contemporaries which the remembrances 
of early youth commonly produce. Of the 
whole of the Regent's reign he speaks in the 
same tone, with the same feelings of tenderness 
towards the depravity in which he had himself 
participated ; calls the elevation of the infamous 
and ignorant Dubois merely ridiculous ; says on 
his death, " Nous rimes de sa mort, comme de son 
elevation ;" speaks of the excesses of the Regent 
and of his court as mere gaiety and mirth ; and 
finishes by comparing him to Henry the Fourth! 
The writer, who has so often lamented the 
manner in which history is falsified, should have 
avoided a falsification, at once more pernicious to 
the interests of morality, and more discreditable 
to its author, than any of those of which lie 
complains. 

In the accounts which are handed down to 
us, on very unimpeachable authority, of the 
abandoned conduct and disgraceful compli- 
ances of women of the highest rank to the ad- 
venturer Law, when the stream of Pactolus was 



343 

supposed to flow through his hands, we recog- 
nize the ancestors of those who, at the begin- 
ning of the Revolution in 1789, profited by the 
first moment of public disorder to throw off 
every restraint, and, under weak and selfish pre- 
tences of personal suffering, to elope from their 
families in danger, and their country in con- 
fusion : while the men, bearing some of the 
most illustrious names of France, whose proge- 
nitors in the year 17 17 had crowded the Rue 
Quincampoix(l), in the year 1789, having, by 
their obstinacy and cupidity, hurried their inno- 
cent and well-intentioned monarch into the dif- 
ficulties which their own ignorance prevented 
their seeing, left him to encounter that popular 
fury which their conduct had chiefly excited ; 
and left their injured and enraged country to 
inflict on itself that dreadful punishment, which, 
in fact, its aristocracy only deserved. (2) 

(1) The Rue Quincampoix is a narrow street in the quar- 
tier de St. Denis, where the transactions of the bank were 
first carried on ; but the crowds became so excessive, and 
so choked up the street and all its environs, that many 
serious accidents occurred in the press before the books 
and the transfers of stock were removed, first, to the 
Hotel de Nevers (now the King's library), then, as a still 
larger space, to the Place de Vendome, and afterwards to 
the garden of the Hotel de Soissons. 

(2) " La regeneration nationale de 1789 ofFroit a la no- 

z 4 



344 



How can all the illustrious names, boasting of 
twelve centuries of uncontaminated blood and of 
distinguished actions, how can they excuse their 
dispersion at the beginning of the Revolution ? 
What future ages must pass away, what brilliant 
achievements be recorded, before this disgraceful 
blot can be erased from their escutcheons ! In 
vain will they urge, that they left their King, at 
his own request, only to return with the means 
of defending him ; for to own having aban- 
doned him to save themselves will hardly be 
brought forward by the nation who boasted 
preferring 

11 Chimene A la vie, et l'honneur a Chime 

" blesse Francoise un inoven d'expier les tort dc lei an- 
" cetres, et de Bubstituer a ane existence privilegiee, (jui 
14 touchoit a son terme, une existence citoyenne, ou elle eut 
" trouvO d'amplea dedommagemens. Sauf des except 
" que je voudrois croire nombreuses, et auxquelK 
" me plais a rendre hommage, elle refusa cet honorable 
U traitc. Sourde aux avertiswemena dune i . que 

" l'aveuglement le plus complet pouvoit seul ineconnoitre, 
"irritee des conseils de ses membres les plus . elle 

u se placa en dehors dune nation, disposee a considcrer 
M comme hostile, tout ce qui mettoit son orgueil a lui rester 
" Stranger, et par ses protestations ineonsiderees, par ses 
" menaces, qui n'avoient de danger que pour elle-meme, elle 
" donna plus de consistence et d'ainertume a des souvenirs 
" facheux, et plus de vraisemblance aux Boupcoofl que ces 
"souvenirs autorisoit." — B, CONSTANT) Lcttres sur U* 
Cent Jours, partie ii. p. 1 10. 



345 

But they fled, leaving their King in the midst 
of an enraged capital and a discontented country : 
they fled to strangers for that assistance which 
they felt they could not hope for from their own 
dependents. Had not the great territorial pro- 
prietors known that many of them were as ob- 
noxious (and much more justly so) to their own 
vassals than their poor deserted King was to the 
populace of Paris, they would have gone down 
to their estates, and spread themselves over the 
provinces. Even to the most ignorant it was 
apparent, that factious and mischievous spirits 
were endeavouring to corrupt their inhabitants ; 
although few calculated how rapidly the im- 
perious progression of circumstances was ad- 
vancing this corruption. Instead of abandoning 
at such a moment their irritated and misguided 
country, had they possessed either energy or 
conduct, they would have reclaimed or perished 
with her. 

The excellent account given by Las Casas, in 
his Memorial de St. Helene, of the beginning, 
the progress, and the effects of emigration, con- 
firms all that is here said. He treats of it with a 
truth, and places it in a light, which, as he had 
himself participated in the folly and madness of 
the measure, could only have been drawn from 
him by the powerful influence of the person 



S4ti 



who bade him speak. (1) We see that even at 
first, when emigration was considered as some- 
thing heroic and chevalresque in the young, 
such was the excessive ignorance and infatuation 
of the older heads guilty of the same miscon- 
duct as to the real sentiments and situation of 
their country, that, if they repressed rather 
than encouraged the measure, it was only from 
a fear that the supposed advantages attached to 
it would be shared by too many competitors, on 
the triumphant return which they all anticipated 
into France. 

In the mean time, the coteries of the prim 
and those of the first society in Paris, disa:ran_ 
by the bustle, and frightened by the disorder of 
the times, dispersed and re-united themselves at 
Coblentz. Many of the secret tics connecting 
these coteries, which propriety and a regard to 
appearances (the only moral feeling remaining) 
had concealed or left doubtful at Paris, were at 
once discovered and brought to light by fre- 
quent journeys to the frontier^ ; by violent declar- 
ations of political principles in persons hardly 
suspected of having any; by supposed duties 
never heard of before, to those they followed, or 



(1) Buonaparte. See Las Casts, Mim v. Htbme, 

torn. iii. )) 



34? 

to those they left behind ; by sacrifices of 
fortune, of fame, and of country, made with 
magnanimous carelessness to please the mistress 
or follow the fashion of the moment. 

Nothing can place in a stronger light the 
severe discipline required by the upper orders 
of society in France at this period, to restore 
them to a sense of their real situation and duties, 
than the account given in the work to which we 
have already alluded of the conduct and man- 
ners of these mistaken people, under circum- 
stances which raised them in no eyes but their 
own. Their insolent manners and absurd pre- 
tensions in the countries which had afforded 
them refuge (1) ; their intolerant etiquettes, 
ridiculous out of the walls of their own palaces ; 
their jealousy of each other, their animosity 
against any one who had hesitated longer than 
themselves at abandoning their country, their 
presuming insolence on what they conceived 
their own superior conduct, was as remarkable 
and as little to the credit either of their character 
or understanding as was afterwards honourable 



(1) At the table of the Elector of Treves, in the year 
1791, a French emigre" (whose name is well forgotten) said 
aloud to one of his countrymen seated by the Elector, 
" Ami, crois-tu que c'est mieux de mourir de faim, ou 
" devoir mange d'un ragout Allemand ? " 



318 



to both the manner in which many of them 
supported the dreadful adversity which quickly 
followed their infatuation. 

Las Casas must be pardoned for endeavouring 
to give the best colour lie can to the motives 
which first led them astray. He boasts the ge- 
nerosity of their sentiments, the purity of their 
intentions, and the heroic devotion of the 
" gentilliommes dc province." But the un- 
adorned truth is, that to this last order of per- 
sons, and to such of the noblesse not habitually 
living at Pafis, or living at Paris unattached to 
the court, the great incentive to emigration was 
the opportunity it gave of approaching the 
persons and attracting the notice of their 
princes, and associating themselves to the higher 
nobility, into whose society they never could 
have forced themselves at court, or at Paris, 
where their pretensions would only have exposed 
them to the merciless wounds of ridicule. It 
was such wounds already festering in the breasts 
of many, that urged them to adopt with acri- 
mony the popular cause, and to be foremost in 
the ranks of reform. Meanwhile, the wiser de- 
mocratical leaders, aware of the consequence 
emigration, secretly encouraged it, and whilst 
they declaimed from the tribune of the National 
Assembly against evaders, took care to leave all 



349 

doors open to facilitate escape. If the disposi- 
tion towards emigration seemed to relax, their 
harangues against it became more violent, and 
their orders more severe. This was sure to 
create a new impulse to fly, and care was taken 
that what appeared a mere accidental negligence 
at the barriers, allowed those who fled all the 
liberty they wished. Regiments were en- 
couraged to revolt, that their commanding 
officers might fancy it necessary to leave them. 
By this means the ruling party got rid of per- 
sons ill disposed towards them, and found in 
the subalterns and non-commissioned officers 
zealous friends to the new arrangements, among 
whom arose most of those great leaders who so 
long defeated the efforts of all the regularly- 
trained troops of Europe. 

While the King was thus abandoned, the 
country was left to be torn in pieces during ten 
years by the most bloody and despicable dema- 
gogues that were ever let loose on a people, 
deprived of all their natural counsellors and de- 
fenders, and forced to struggle out of anarchy 
through all the horrors of popular convulsions. 
The inevitable consequences, the natural death 
entailed by such convulsions, was the military 
despotism which so long extended its iron arm 
over that rich and highly-favoured country, 



350 

which her nobles deserted, instead of defending, 
and irritated instead of guiding. 

However such conduct may have been glossed 
over by the panic of the moment, from the 
impartial pen of history those guilty of it can- 
not hope to escape. In the future records of 
France, the violence, the barbarity, the atrocities 
of an ignorant and incensed populace, power- 
fully excited, will be noticed with compassion ; 
while the dereliction of her most illustrious 
nobles, her captains, and her statesmen, will be 
consigned to the judgment it merit-. 

Let not the author be here misunderstood : that 
author knows and reverences the individual 
talents and virtues of the French nation ; ho- 
nours innumerable instances of devoted attach- 
ment to their country, and of enlightened 1 
of their monarch and his race > respects the con- 
duct of thousands involved from inevitable cir- 
cumstances in their disastrous emigration, and 
remembers with respect and admiration their 
conduct under all the privations, sufferings, and 
mortifications to which it subjected them: — but 
the author is here speaking of emigration 
political measure of the day, and ventures to 
attribute it to what it is believed all think 
minds will allow to have been at once its cause 



351 

and its excuse — to the general degraded state 
of moral feeling under institutions which the 
natural quickness of the nation had long outrun. 
To which must be added the administration 
of a series of weak ministers, acting under, 
or rather for, the two dissipated and profligate 
princes (the Regent and Louis the Fifteenth), 
who, in succeeding to Louis the Fourteenth, suc- 
ceeded to all the unpopularity which the disorder 
of the finances entailed by the passing glory of 
his reign necessarily devolved on his successors. 
The spectacle of a great nation shaking off 
chains it had so long worn, and reclaiming rights 
of which it had been so long deprived, soon 
attracted the eyes and interested the feelings of 
all Europe in its success : — that success it was 
itself entirely unprepared either to bear or to 
profit by. Its wits and its philosophers had un- 
dermined every prop, both of its throne and of 
its altars, without having condescended to form 
any plan for a new construction, or even to have 
any foresight of what was likely to arise from 
the ruins they had made. Few of their number 
had had opportunities of occupying themselves 
in any practical details of reform; and the whole 
bulk of the nation, educated for centuries in the 
habits of despotism, had no standard to recur to 



S5°Z 



by which to measure either their rights, their ex- 
pectations, or their demands. (1) 

In our great dispute with our monarch, a 
century before, tee reclaimed rights acknow- 
ledged by repeated charters, confirmed by suc- 
cessive sovereigns, never infringed without re- 
monstrance, and seldom without a further secu- 
rity for their future observance. But the in- 
toxication of France, on her first successes, in a 
cause so new, was immediately followed by a 
general fever of mind, a mental epidemy, accom- 
panied by symptoms of delirium at once horri- 
ble and ridiculous. From a centre of infection 
so potent, the disease soon spread itself nationally 
and individually over the greater part of Eun 
marking its progress by schemes of impossible 
reform, complaints of irremediable evils, virions 
of perfection incompatible with human nature, 



(1) " II ne faut pas croire que la nation fut d 
" pour manier dignement M liberie. oil encore 

"dans 1'edueation et le caracure trop de prejuges du 
" terns passe. Cela seroit venu, nous nous fonnions chaque 
" jour ; mais nous avions encore beaucoup i gagner. 
" de l'explosion de la Revolution, les patriotes en general, 
" se trouverent tels par nature, par instinct ; ce sentiment se 
" trouva dans leur sang ; ce fut chez eux une passion, une 
" frenesie ; et dela l'eftervescence, les exces, l'exageration 
" de l'epoque." — Buonaparte to Las Casas, Memorial de 
St. Helhie, torn. iv. p. 98. 






353 

a dereliction of real and experienced benefits, 
for untried and impossible improvements ; a 
general discontent with the existing order of 
things, and violent aspirations after an imagined 
and visionary future. 

When Voltaire, by the universality of his 
genius, the vivacity and the activity of his wit, 
and by a character singularly adapted to give to 
both their full effect with his countrymen — 
when he had roused a spirit of enquiry, and had 
given an irresistible impulse not only to the taste 
and literature, but to the general opinions of his 
age — another singularly-endowed being made 
his appearance in the domain of letters, who, 
scorning to address himself to the understand- 
ing, spoke directly to the heart and passions. 
Wielding at his pleasure the mighty force of an 
unexampled eloquence on the feelings of a 
lively and excitable people, he completed the 
mental revolution of France, which immediately 
preceded and materially contributed to the 
great political revolution that ensued. Rous- 
seau, endowed with the power of conceiving 
and of expressing every exalted feeling of the 
human heart, every sentiment of noble enthu- 
siasm, every excess of virtuous passion, every 
ecstatic joy and excruciating sorrow that can 
belong to the intellectual nature of man ; Rous* 

A A 



354 

seau, thus admirable in general conceptions, 
and in imaginary personifications of all that was 
great and good, was absolutely divested of judg- 
ment in their application to real life and to his 
own conduct. In his writings he promulgated 
principles of impossible application, and covered 
with the magic of his imagination the weakness 
and the contradictions of his arguments, in his 
own life, and in the extraordinary and lament- 
able details of it which his excessive vanity 
induced him to record, we have the measure of 
his estimation, and of his adherence to truth, 
when he tells us, in the midst of his career, that 
he has fulfilled a great and noble task, in ex- 
piating his secret faults and weaknesses, by ac- 
cusing himself of others more serious, of which 
he was not only innocent but incapable. (1) 
Throughout his Confessions, v. an ill- 

organized mind, endued with talents invariably 
employed to exalt human nature in the n 
and degrade it individually. An idle, lively, 
neglected boy, he runs away from a culpably 
careless father, and spends the first twenty-live 
years of his life a self-determined vagabond, in 

(1) '• Mais ici commence la grande et noble tache que j'ai 
" dignement remplie, d'expier mes iautes et mes foibh 
11 cachees, en me chargeant de fautef plus graves, dont j 

" incapable, et que je ne commis jamais." — Confessions 
torn. ili. p. T20. 



355 

the commission of repeated acts of vile and 
voluntary baseness ; in the indulgence of the 
most foolish and most volatile attachments to 
objects invariably worthless ; in repeated, un- 
grateful neglect of many extraordinary instances 
of real kindness ; and in an obstinate opposition 
to every attempt made to better his existence 
and to reform his propensities. 

It is to be regretted, that, for the honour of 
human nature, we have not, and are never likely 
to have, the confessions of some well-constituted 
and ingenuous mind, having been, like Rous- 
seau, deprived of wholesome restraint in infancy, 
and having, like him, alone and unassisted, to 
combat all the ills, the sufferings, and the pas- 
sions of youth. How often, in such confessions, 
should we find all the noble enthusiasm of virtue, 
all the heroic self-devotion of friendship, all the 
fond visions of pure and faithful love, all "the ex- 
quisite enjoyments of nature, and all the " long- 
ings after immortality," unmixed with and un- 
disgraced by the vile propensities, the silly attach- 
ments, the insatiable vanity, the obstinate selfish- 
ness, and the perpetual inconstancy of Rousseau. 

Those who were well acquainted with the 
national character of France, and with her go- 
vernment, previous to the Revolution — with the 
peculiarities of the one, and the principles of the 

a a c 2 



356 

other — must soon convince themselves, that a 
change in the social existence of that country 
was inevitable, and independent of all the finan- 
cial difficulties which have been supposed the 
principal and immediate cause of her Revolution. 
The nation had fairly outgrown her institutions. 
Vain was the endeavour to patch, and stretch, 
and fit them to the altered fashion of the times. 
The tawdry rags, covering the shackles, in spite 
of which she had grown up to strength and beauty, 
would no longer hold together. They appeared 
at every turn, and chafed her in every movement, 
and this yet more in the details of social life than 
in public measures. The spirit of the times, and 
the progress of the human mind, on the great 
subjects of civil liberty and government, had 
much circumscribed the (otherwise unlimited) 
power of the crown over the liberty and pro- 
perty of its subjects. Arbitrary imprisonments, 
although equally legitimate, were more rarely 
resorted to. Political opinions it was found no 
longer possible to repress. They were produced 
under every varied form that a popular literature 
could assume, to disseminate discontent through 
every order of the state. A lively people, already 
disposed to listen, were thus addressed in the 
language of wit and of passion. Voltaire and 
Rousseau had lent a voice to express feelings 



357 

which nature had implanted in every heart, and 
opinions which already lurked in every mind. 
Few were sufficiently informed to be able to de- 
tect their errors or their exaggerations ; but the 
refined began to perceive, that the profound cor- 
ruption of manners which pervaded all orders of 
society was adverse even to their enjoyments. (1 ) 
The enlightened were aware, that the absolute 
want of mutual faith entailed by such corruption, 
prevented all associations, depending on the con- 
fidence of man with man, for increasing the 
benefits and lessening the evils of social life. 
An ignorance of the value, an indifference to the 
existence, and a neglect of the practice of truth, 
collectively and individually, of which their 
government set the example, pervaded all their 
combinations, and paralysed all their enormous 
natural advantages. Hence no public banks, no 
companies of assurance against individual losses, 
no great partnerships for mutual gain, no cor- 

(1) " C'est a l'exces de la depravation, au degout du d£s- 
" ordre, a l'avilissement des mceurs, c'est au vice, enfin, qu'il 
" appartient de detruire les plaisirs, et de d£crier l'amour. 
" On reclamera la vertu, jusqu'a un certain point, pour l'in- 
" teret du plaisir. Croyez-moi qu'il arrivera du changement, 
" et peut-etre en bien. II n'y a rien, par exemple, qui soit 
" aujourd'hui si decrie que l'amour conjugal. Ce prejuge 
" est trop violent : il ne peut pas durer." — Duclos, Memoires 
du C te . ***, torn. i. p. 107. 

A A 3 



358 



porate bodies possessing the confidence of their 
fellow-citizens. A tacit agreement seemed to have 
taken place mutually to receive and to make asser- 
tions, without enquiry into prooft but at the same 
time without confidence in fact, on either part. 

They had not yet advanced in the doctrine 
of sound and useful ethics to the conclusion, that 
truth is, in every thing, not only the shortest but 
the only road to excellence — the only foundation 
on which any thing permanent can ever be 
raised; and that all ways of evading, slighting, 
or opposing it are, in fact, only loss of time and 
hinderance of business in the affairs of men. 

A stronger instance can scarcely be given of 
the unmodified disregard to truth which had long 
existed in France, than the account of a dud 
between the Due de Richelieu and the Comte 
de Gace at the beginning of the Regency. 
This account is given in memoirs which, if not 
written by the Due de Richelieu himself were 
published in his name by some one devoted to 
his interests. The quarrel took place at the Bal 
de l 9 Opera: the combatants left it together, and 
stopped to fight in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, 
one of the most public and frequented streets of 
Paris, surrounded by hundreds of spectat 
They were both wounded, and Richelieu dan- 
gerously. The affair made such a noise from its 



359 

remarkable publicity, and the existing laws 
against duelling, that the Parliament of Paris 
thought proper to take notice of it. In the mean 
time, the Regent sent both the individuals with- 
out further ceremony to the Bastille. The Par- 
liament, with the permission of the Regent, 
continued their proceedings, and one of their 
body was deputed to interrogate the principals. 
" Le Parlement nomma Ferrand pour nous inter- 
" roger, et nous jurdmes tous deux, que nous 
" ?i'etio?is point battus en duel." No witnesses 
presented themselves, though invited. " Nos 
" juges etoient bien assures que nous nous etions 
" battus a Poutrance. — Ensuite les preuves 
" du combat ne s'etant pas manifestees, le Parle- 
" ment nous declara absous d'un pretendu duel, 
" et je sorti de la Bastille." (1) 

This absence of all regard to moral truth had 
communicated itself, from the maxims of their 
government, through all the ramifications of their 
private existence and affairs. It was not enough 
that marriage, in the upper orders of society, was 
generally considered as a contract, which, being 
made without consulting the contracting parties, 
gave them afterwards a tacit right to evade with- 
out reproach. Persons of the rank of nobles 

(1) See Memoires du Due de Richelieu, torn. ii. p. 100. 
A A 4* 



360 



were found vile enough to accept in marriage, 
and to bestow the name of* wife, on those whose 
conduct, as well as birth, would otherwise have 
denied them an entrance into society. Some- 
times the same disgraceful bargain was made 
with those of their own rank, who found a more 
honourable establishment difficult. The husband 
sacrificing at once his honour and his rights at 
the church-door, was sent to eat the wages of his 
base compliance in a distant provincial town. 
Here his title and his money soon procured him 
the good graces of some provincial beauty, who 
consoled him for the contempt with which he 
had been treated elsewhere, and whose husband 
imitated his own example of forbearance and 
submission. The sacrifice of youth and beauty 
was often made, and made without remonstrance, 
to deformity, to age, and even to imbecility, 
among persons equal in birth, when one of the 
parties had to oiler the wealth or brilliant e 
ence in society whieli was wanting to the other. 
— Even among the philosophers ami refbrn 
of the age — of those whose writings breathe 
nothing but the charms of conjugal fidelity, and 
the praises of constancy of sentiment, and pu- 
rity of manners — their own lives and tho9t 
their connections prove how little impression their 
doctrine had made either on themselves or otla re. 



361 



Without adverting to the moral conduct of 
Rousseau, or trusting to the opprobrious cha- 
racters he gives of most of his contemporaries, 
and of all his intimates, the whole of Voltaire's 
connexion with Madame du Chatelet ; the base 
conduct of the caustic Duclos towards persons 
of his most intimate society ; the adventures 
of the pastoral St. Lambert ; the letters of 
Madame d'Epinay, and a crowd of other con- 
temporary witnesses, prove not so much against 
the characters of the individuals, as against the 
total degradation of sentiment and the absence 
of all moral truth which had taken place uni- 
versally in cultivated society. Madame du Cha- 
telet's proficiency in mathematics and the severe 
studies of men seems to have secured her from 
no female frivolity, weakness, or inconsistency. 
In her conduct she proved herself without mo- 
ral principle of any sort, and in the little details 
of life without liberality, reason, or propriety. 
Her passion for dress and for gaming was ex- 
cessive. In the first, she made herself ridicu- 
lous from her bad taste ; and in the latter, almost 
ruined herself by her excesses. During a resi- 
dence of the court at Fontainbleau, she lost at 
the Queen's table, in the two or three first sit- 
tings, a thousand pounds; one half of which she 
contrived to force from her steward by antici- 



36<2 

pation on her revenues, and the other half she 
borrowed from Voltaire and from a Demoiselle 
du Thil, who seems to haye been a humble 
but attached friend. 

Not content with this loss, and supposing, like 
the veriest gambler, that she was to repair it by 
continuing to play, she again lost no less than 
three thousand five hundred pounds on her word. 
Voltaire, who had been the miserable spectator 
of this ruin, returned with her to Paris during 
the night of this last adventure, having with dif- 
ficulty got together her servants, horses, kc. 
lodged in different parts of the town of Fontain- 
bleau. So entirely pennyless was the whole 
party, that a wheel having broken near Essone, 
nobody had wherewithal to pay the blacksmith. 
He absolutely refused to let them proceed before 
he was satisfied for his job, and they were detained 
till by good luck an acquaintance of Madame du 
Chatelet's passing by, she borrowed the money 
necessary to release them. 

After this adventure, she retired with Voltaire 
to her husband's estate at Cirey in Champagne, to 
economise, and to endeavour to forget her losses. 
She always set out on all journeys, in all weather, 
winter or summer, at night, without the least con- 
sideration for the servants who accompanied her, 
or any precaution taken about the carriage that 



363 

conveyed herself and them ; although it was 
always overloaded by the quantity of baggage 
which travelled with her. On the above-men- 
tioned journey with Voltaire to Cirey, they set 
out from Paris at nine o'clock of a January 
night, the ground covered with snow, in an old 
tub of a coach, loaded like a diligence, — herself, 
Voltaire, her femme-de-chambre, and a pile of 
bandboxes within, and two servants on the out- 
side. The axle-tree broke before they arrived at 
Nangis, within six miles of Paris. She and Vol- 
taire were obliged to remain seated on the 
cushions of the carriage placed on the snow, 
while a blacksmith was sent for, three miles off, 
to repair the carriage. So ill was he paid for his 
work, as well as the peasants who came to their 
assistance, that on the carriage breaking again 
before it had proceeded half a league, neither 
blacksmith nor peasants would return to assist 
till they had bargained for their remuneration. 

In the whole arrangements of her household, 
and all domestic details, she was so shamefully 
penurious in her expences, that her servants 
have been known all to leave her at once on the 
eve of a removal. Their claims for an increase of 
wages could not even in those days have been 
called exorbitant ; when her coachman, her two 
footmen, and her cook were paid at the rate of 



36± 



twenty sous (lOd.) a day, including their board 
wages, and her femme-de-chambre, her porter, 
and her upper servant thirty sous (Is. 3d.) 

However much she surpassed her sex in cer- 
tain powers of intellect, she seems to have par- 
taken of the absolute want of consideration for 
the lower orders of society, which, in spite of 
Voltaire and his fellow-labourers to raise the 
dignity of man, and to destroy artificial differences, 
was still general in all immediate intercourse 
with the people : they seem hardly to have been 
considered as of the same nature with their su- 
periors. Some curious instances of this are given 
in the memoirs of a valet-de-chambre of Ma- 
dame du Chatelet's, lately published (1), to 
which the reader must be referred for the de- 
tails in question ; confining ourselves here to the 
general remark suggested by the man himself 
as an apology for Madame du Chatelet's con- 
duct, in the circumstances which he recounts. 
" On ne se genoit pas devant ses laquais. C'etoit 
" 1* usage, et j'ai etc a meme dejuger par mon 
" propre example, que leurs mattresses ne les 
" regardoient que comme des automates. Je 
" suis du moins convaincu que Madame du Cha- 



(1) Menwircs sur Voltaire, ct sur ses Quvragcs, par Long- 
champ ct U'agnilres. Paris, 18S 



365 

" telet, dans son bain, en m'ordonnant de la 
" servir, ne voyoit pas meme en cela l'ombre 
" d'indecence, et que mon individu n'etoit alors 
" a ses yeux ni plus ni moins que la bouilloire 
" que j'avois a la main. ,, 

Her losses at play had not lessened her im- 
moderate love of gaming. On her return from 
Cirey to Paris, she stopped at Chalons at eight 
o'clock in the morning, to breakfast with the 
bishop of that place. Her post-horses were 
ordered at half past nine, to carry her on : while 
waiting for them, she proposed a party at cards. 
The horses came, and were sent away again till 
two. By this time she had dined, and the party 
at cards was recommenced, which lasted till past 
eight o'clock at night, the post-horses and drivers 
having been in attendance from two o'clock till 
that hour. 

When Voltaire first discovered her infidelity to 
him, and her amour with St. Lambert, they were 
all lodged together in the country house of 
Stanislaus, the Ex- King of Poland, at Commercey 
in Lorraine. Voltaire's rage was excessive. St. 
Lambert took up the matter with a high hand, 
and said if his conduct displeased him, he was 
ready to answer for it. Madame du Chatelet 
was much calmer, and, nothing put out, she 
went up to the apartment of Voltaire, and argued 



3(56 

the matter with him in a quite different manner, 
justifying her conduct, and giving her reasons 
for so doing. For these reasons the reader must 
be referred to the original work already quoted. 
Voltaire finished the conversation (overheard by 
him who reports it) with saying, " Ah! Madame, 
" vous aurez toujours raison ; mais puisqu'il faut 
" que les choses soit ainsi, du moins, qu'elles ne 
" se passent pas devant mes yeux. M The affair 
ended by St. Lambert making apologies to Vol- 
taire for the impetuosity of his language, and 
the whole party supping together the next night 
as usual, at Madame de Bouflers. 

St. Lambert seems to have been a much more 
successful lover with the ladies than with the 
muses, although he courted both assiduously. 
Of a gentleman's family in Lorraine, and in the 
French service, he was attached to the household 
of Stanislaus during his retreat at Luneville. 
Here he became the favoured lover of the Mar- 
quise dc Bouflers, the mother to the Chevalier de 
Bouflers of epigrammatic memory, and the osten- 
sible mistress of the old gouty King of Poland. 
His pretensions to gallantry, however, were <till 
such as obliged the lovers to various precau- 
tions, and inconveniences of time and place ; 
which, it would seem, the charms of the lady did 
not compensate to St. Lambert. No such dif- 



367 

Acuities occurred in his arrangements with Ma- 
dame du Chatelet, when they were all living to- 
gether under the same roof at Luneville. But 
the forsaken mistress, Madame de Bouflers, does 
not seem to have been consoled by the forsaken 
lover Voltaire ; and was obliged for a time to 
confine herself to the less interesting occupa- 
tion of doing the honours of his palace for the 
old King. 

The whole of Madame du Chatelet' s conduct, 
when she found herself with child by St. Lam- 
bert (1), was equally without delicacy or honour. 
She makes a confidant of her supplanted lover 
Voltaire, and he, together with the present in- 
cumbent St. Lambert, lays a plan to bring the 
husband, Mr. du Chatelet, to Cirey, that he may 
father the child, which Voltaire wittily observed 
must be placed " au nombre des ceuvres melees de 
" Madame du Chatelet." She was, it seems, per- 
suaded that she was to die in childbed. (2) Some 
iced orgeat which, against the express orders of 
her physician, she insisted on her attendants 
giving her during the first days of her confine- 
ment, was supposed to have caused her death. 
Madame de Bouflers, and the whole company at 



(1) In 1749. 

(2) She was past forty-five at the time. 



368 



her supper, were all in the room when she died, 
according to the French fashion of leaving 
existence and society at the same moment. 
Longchamp, the author of the memoirs already 
cited, was then acting as valet-de-chambre to 
Voltaire, and was likewise present. Imme- 
diately after Madame du Chatelet expired, he 
was whispered by Madame de Bouflers to ex- 
amine if she had not still on her finger a cor- 
nelian ring set round with small brilliants; that 
if she had, he was to take it off, and keep it till 
she sent for him. This she did the next morn- 
ing, and in the presence of St. Lambert, Long- 
champ produced the ring, which he had taken 
from Madame du Chatelet's ringer. Madame 
de Bouflers, alter showing it to St. Lambert, 
opened a secret spring in the netting, and with 
a pin took from below it his portrait, which 
she gave him, and then returned the ring to 
Longchamp, desiring him to place it with the 
rest of her effects to be given up to M. du Cha- 
telet. Two or three days afterwards, Voltaire 
desired the same Longchamp to apply to Ma- 
dame du Chatelet's maid to know if this same 
ring remained in her hands, and it" it did, he 
gave him directions to open it by the Bame 
means he had already seen used, to take out the 
portrait he would rind, and to bring it to him. 



369 

Longchamp tells his master that the ring in 
question is already in the hands of M. du Cha- 
telet, but that he can assure him that Voltaire's 
portrait is not in it. " Et comment savez-vous 
" cela ? me dit-il. Je lui racontai ingenument 
u ce qui s'etoit passe chez Madame de Bouflers, 
" en presence de M. de St. Lambert. O Ciel ! 
" dit-il, en se levant et joignantses deux mains, 
" Voila bien les femmes ! J'avois ote Richelieu, 
" St. Lambert m'en a expulse, — cela est dans 
" l'ordre, — un clou chasse Pautre, — ainsi vont 
" les affaires de ce monde." (1) 

Voltaire, it must be confessed, in all affairs 
where the heart came in question, seems to have 
had infinitely more generous and more tender 
sentiments than those with whom he was con- 
nected, notwithstanding his excessive irritability 
on all subjects connected with himself, his works, 
and his fame. Of this we have a remarkable 
instance in the letters of Madame de Grafigny. 
These letters, written from Cirey, at the begin- 
ning of the year 1740, give many entertaining 
particulars of the life of Voltaire and Madame 
du Chatelet in the country. Their writer was 
the author of the Lettres Peruviennes, and some 
other smaller works. Whatever may have been 

(1) Memoires de Longchamp. 
B B 



370 

her genius, her letters are the unaffected dictates 
of a heart overflowing with attachment, interest, 
and affection for her friends, and desirous of 
communicating to them all her pleasures and 
amusements. She had been invited from Lune- 
ville in the winter of the year 174-0, at a mo- 
ment when the society at Cirey was neither 
brilliant nor numerous. But she is proud and 
delighted to find herself under the same roof 
with Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet, then 
both in the zenith of their glory, and occupying 
the attention of all the literary world. Of the 
transactions of every day she writes a detailed 
account to one of her friends at Luneville, him- 
self a literary man, and a minor poet. (1) To 
him she describes minutely the furniture, decor- 
ations and arrangements of the castle of Cirey, 
and every particular of the every-day lite there. 
This life had certainly nothing to do with the 
habitation of the country, and might have been 
better followed in any town in Europe than in 
a chateau in Champagne. By the arrangement 
of the day, however, its inmates certainly ob- 
tained time for occupation in the morning. In 



(1) Panpan, the name by which she always addreaaet bet 
espondem tux, who acted m 

and reader to Stanislaus. 



371 

the evening Voltaire often submitted to the 
opinion of his companions some composition 
which the morning had produced. It is in- 
teresting, too, to observe by these details, that his 
mind, endued with all the various powers of a 
truly fertile genius, could amuse itself with any 
trifles ; that, passing 

" From grave to gay, from lively to severe," 

he was excellent at the exhibition of puppets 
and the management of the magic-lantern. 

When the company was sufficiently numerous 
to admit of any dramatic entertainment, some of 
Voltaire's pieces were represented in a theatre 
in the castle, and their effect first tried on its 
society. He had himself great pleasure in re- 
presenting characters in his own tragedies, and 
was delighted to assume the costumes and dis- 
guises of a theatre. The author knew an old 
lady at Lausanne, who was much acquainted 
with Voltaire, and perfectly remembered, during 
his occasional residence in that town, having 
seen him stand at his own door in the costume 
of the sultan in Zaire, ready for the represent- 
ation of that piece long before the rest of the 
actors and the hour of beginning, exhibiting 
himself in broad daylight to the wonder and 
admiration of all the children and passers- 
b b 2 



372 

by. His acting in tragedy, the same authority 
stated to have been far from good, although he 
seems to have had very just ideas of the faults 
and merits of acting in others. 

At Cirey Madame de Grahgny remained a 
delighted guest all the month of December, in 
spite of the various deficiencies and the ex- 
cessive cold of her bed-room ; for it would seem 
that all the luxuries and ornaments, and even 
common comforts of the castle, were confined 
to the apartments of Voltaire and of the lady. 
Voltaire, however, continued to treat their guest 
with flattering kindness, and the lady of the 
castle as civilly as was compatible with her 
imperious character. Among the works of 
Voltaire then on the anvil, was the Puce lie 
d'0rlea?is, of which the different cantos (to 
the disgrace of the taste and of the manners of 
the times) were submitted to the inspection and 
judgment of several of his female friends. (1) 
Madame de Grafigny was thus distinguished. 
She expresses her admiration of the wit and 
fancy of the author frequently in her letters 
to her friend at Luneville, without the smallest 



(1) Grimm says, lie was aided in writing it by three 
ladies, one of whom was still alive in 1778. — See Grimm's 

Memoirs. 



373 

feeling of the grossness and the immorality of the 
poem. Such were the moral effects of the age, 
even on a virtuous mind, capable of the most 
refined sentiments and the most devoted attach- 
ments ! 

As Voltaire had already allowed all sort of 
manuscript publicity to his poem, and as in 
France at this time the maxims of the govern- 
ment were in direct contradiction with the feel- 
ings of the governed, the police were on the 
alert to prevent its being printed or to arrest the 
author. An intimation to this effect had reached 
Cirey while Madame de Grafigny was there. Her 
frequent correspondence with her literary friend 
at Luneville was immediately construed by Ma- 
dame du Chatelet into having been the cause 
of this denunciation. Without further cere- 
mony or scruple, she opened Madame de Gra- 
figny's letters, and, confirmed in her suspicions 
by an ambiguous phrase in a letter from her 
friend, she instantly raised Voltaire's too iras- 
cible mind into a ferment of passion. They 
both together entered the room of their un- 
suspecting guest, and without any other evidence 
on the subject than this letter obtained by 
treachery, addressed her in language of such 
indignity, and of such reproach, as would 
have been disgraceful to them in any circum- 

b b 3 



374 

stances: — far more in those in which they 
stood to a poor, defenceless woman, hardly 
removed from a dependent situation in life, and 
unable to fly from their rage. Voltaire's good 
feelings made him repent of the outrage he had 
committed long before the complete justification 
of their victim had burst on her accusers. 

His conduct to her she herself represents as 
that of a person thoroughly ashamed, and de- 
sirous of making any reparation for having been 
betrayed, first into the treachery of opening her 
letters, and then into building totally &b< 
conclusions on a mistaken application of their 
contents. But the whole conduct of Madame 
du Chatelet, even in her tardy apologia, pn 
an absence of every kindly feeling, and \m 
an odious impression of her honour and of her 
mind. 

The letters of Madame d'Epinay are still 
stronger evidence of the moral degradation of 
the times, and the more so, as they describe the 
manners, not of the highest, but of the second 
order of society ; of persons whose wealth entitled 
them to all the advantages of education, and se- 
cured to them those means of rational independ- 
ence in future life, of which their superiors in 
rank were often deprived by their poverty and 
by the pensions of the Court ; — of that order of 



375 

society, in short, which, in our own, and most 
other countries, contains by far the largest por- 
tion of the best-cultivated intellect. Madame 
d'Epinay was the daughter of an officer, without 
fortune, married to the son of a financier. She 
seems to have been endowed with every natural 
disposition towards virtue which a w r eak and vain 
mind can be supposed to possess. The convent 
education common to that day, and a marriage 
of mere interest, settled by her parents with a 
silly, profligate husband, threw her into a society 
where she found neither principles to oppose, nor 
fashion to restrain, the illusions of a world which 
was new to her ignorance, and flattering to her 
vanity. Within two years after her marriage to 
a husband, whom she begins by adoring, she 
yields to a lover, because she is told that no 
person of refined sentiments could be blamed for 
so doing, and that she finds all the persons of her 
intimate society have adopted the same doctrine. 
She throws herself into the hands of a female 
friend, who begins by confessing her own pro- 
fligacy, to encourage Madame d'Epinay, and to 
become the confidante of her first amour — the 
friend having for her object the power of seeing 
her own lover in all liberty, and of securing an 
intimate footing in the house of a rich financier, 
Madame d' Epinay's father- in-law. The company 

b b 4 



376 

and the patronage of wits and bel-esprits was the 
fashion of the day. The rich financiers indulged 
in it, as they did in every other luxury ; and the 
women of their society adopted it, as they did 
every other fashion. Madame d'Epinay was soon 
surrounded by Duclos, St. Lambert, Rousseau, 
Grimm, and a host of others, who enlisted in 
the corps of beaux-esprits and philosophers, as 
a passport to the propagation of sentiments of 
disbelief in the religion, and discontent with 
the government, of their country. In Madame 
d'Epinay's uninformed mind they found an easy 
proselyte. Rousseau shakes her belief in revealed 
religion, and the moral government of the world, 
by a bad fable (1) ; and preaches up the necessity 
of moral conduct, as a prejudice to which he 
advises her to adhere, although he is not happy 
enough to partake of it. Her mind, thus relieved 
from the wholesome restraints which, in any 
other state of society, would have carried her 
well-disposed character respectably through lite ; 
enlightened (as she thought) by those to whose 
abilities she looked up for instruction, she follows 
their example, and like them, while breathing 
sentiments of devotion to her duties, of patience 
with an extravagant and profligate husband, and 

(1) See Madame d'Epinay's Memoirs, vol. ii. p."" 



377 

attachment to her children, she allows herself to 
be made the confidante of an intrigue of her 
sister-in-law with Jelyotte, a public singer. She 
aids their meetings, and receives them into her 
intimate society ; and this, without even the ex- 
cuse of any particular friendship for the sister-in- 
law, but merely as what one amiable woman of 
sentiment was called on to do for another. After 
this signal service, Madame d'Epinay finds her- 
self entirely neglected by the two persons in 
question, until the lady having changed her lover, 
she again addresses herself with confidence to her 
sister-in-law, to break her infidelity to Jelyotte, 
to console him for it, to get back her letters and 
picture, and to prevent his open complaints of 
her inconstancy. To avoid a public discussion, 
and an exposure of these rapid changes in the 
dramatis personam of private connexions, were the 
only morals of the day — the only necessary vir- 
tue, either of abstinence or charity, which was 
considered obligatory or estimable in the com- 
merce of the world. To supplant each other, 
either in love, friendship, or affairs, was all deemed 
fair play. It was in the conduct afterwards that 
nobleness of mind and distinguished sentiments 
were supposed to be shown, certainly at a small 
expence of forbearance, for the parties were 
mutually allowed to console themselves as soon 



378 

and as often as they pleased. Thus, when Madame 
d'Epinay, tired with the infidelities of her first 
lover, Francueil, attaches herself to Grimm, Du- 
clos, the cynic, the plain-spoken Duclos, who had 
first himself endeavoured to supplant Francueil 
with Madame d'Epinay, now advises her, as the 
only necessary precaution, to try and continue 
to keep on good terms with Francueil ; while 
Duclos, vexed at his own want of success with 
her, transgresses his rules, and tells so much truth 
and so much untruth of her to Francueil and 
to the rest of the world, that he is formally ba- 
nished from her house and society as an un 
inmate, — a measure never resorted to but in 
extreme cases. 

In this society Rousseau received the inspi- 
ration of what he himself calls tlu and 
only real passion of his life — that for Madame 
d'Houdetot, the half sister of Madame d'Epinay. 
The account given in her sister's memoirs of the 
marriage of this young lady, before she was 
twenty, to a perfect stranger, both to herselfoad 
to her family, must be received as some pal- 
liation for her immediately adopting the man- 
ners of those about her, and attaching herself 
to St. Lambert. This attachment, in spite of 
Rousseau's attempt to shake its fidelity, lasted 
uninterruptedly to the end of their mutual and 



379 

prolonged lives. (1) It acquired by this extra- 
ordinary circumstance a respectability in the 
eyes of the world of that day, beyond which its 
sternest moralists did not even pretend to soar. 
Rousseau asserts, that no woman could have 
resolved to have destroyed such expressions of 
passion as his letters to Madame d'Houdetot j 
and that, whenever they appear, the language of 
his Nouvelle Helo'ise will be thought cold and 
fastidious in comparison of them. It is to be 
feared, however, that these letters were sacrificed 
to her faithful attachment to St. Lambert. Yet 
who but must wish to have seen the inspirations 
of a real passion from the pen of Rousseau ! 
except it may be supposed that, living as he 
did, on all subjects, in impracticable visions of 
his own creation, an imaginary mistress would 
exercise a greater power over his feelings than 
any real object could ever hope to obtain. 



(1) The author remembers to have seen Madame d'Hou- 
detot in a French society at Paris, in the year 1802, and 
was seated next her for some time without knowing who 
she was. It was impossible, however, not to remark her ap- 
pearance as one of the plainest old women imaginable. No 
opportunity occurred for conversation, as the younger part 
of the society was dancing, and Madame d'Houdetot re- 
tired very early on account of the severe illness of Monsieur 
de St. Lambert, who died the year afterwards. 



380 

His intimacy with Madame d'Houdetot ceased, 
from an entire absence of all reciprocity in her 
feelings towards him, which his never- failing 
vanity on these subjects construed into the most 
heroic triumph of constancy to her previous en- 
gagement. With Madame d'Epinay his con- 
nexion ended (as it had done with all those 
from whom he had received great benefits and 
signal kindness) by an open breach, by insulting 
and offensive letters, and by considering himself 
as the injured person, and his benefactors as the 
ungrateful. 



38 L 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE TRIBUNALS OF FRANCE, THEIR DISGRACEFUL CON- 
DUCT. THE PRETENSIONS OF THE PARLIAMENTS. 

POLITICAL DISCUSSION BECOMES GENERAL IN SOCIETY. 

EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS 

OF VOLTAIRE ON THE CHARACTER OF HIS COUNTRY. — 
STATE OF SOCIETY AT PARIS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING 

THE REVOLUTION. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON 

THE OPINIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIMES. 

REMARKABLE DIFFERENCE IN THE CONDUCT OF 

ENGLAND AND FRANCE UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES OF 

POPULAR EXCITATION. EXECUTION OF FOULON. — 

MIXTURE OF ATROCITY AND FOLLY IN THE SUCCESSIVE 

DEMAGOGUES OF FRENCH LIBERTY. CHAUMETTE. 

TRIAL OF THE QUEEN. HEBERT. COULTRON. 

ST. JUST. COLLOT d'hERBOIS. STRANGE INSENSI- 
BILITY TO DEATH. FRIVOLOUS DISCUSSIONS OF THE 

CONVENTION. 

The tribunals of France form a conspicuous 
feature in the character of these times. Without 
adverting to the disgraceful abuse of public 
justice in the cases of Calas, of Servien, and of 
the Chevalier de la Barre, held up to general 
odium by the indefatigable exertions of Voltaire, 



382 

the courts rang with trials, where redress for 
the most flagrant breaches of faith were vainly 
sought from those whose birth, connections, or 
favour at court secured as entirely from the 
action of the law as their palsied consciences did 
from the dictates of common honesty. Such 
were the trials of the Comte de Morangie, of 
the Due de Richelieu with Madame St. Vin- 
cent, of the Comte de Guigne with his secretary 
Tot, of Beaumarchais with his client Goesman, 
of Mademoiselle Camp, a Protestant of respect- 
able family at Montauban. She was married 
by the Protestant rites to a young man of family, 
pretending to be likewise a Protestant. After 
living together for some years publicly as man 
and wife, and having a child, he deserted her, 
married another woman at Paris, and availed 
himself of the laws then existing with regard to 
the marriages of Catholics with Protestants, to 
appeal to the parliament of Paris, who in the year 
177- declared the marriage null and void; and 
the child to be taken from its unfortunate 
mother, and brought up in a convent. 

Even the hideous crime of murder, when com- 
mitted by persons above the rank of Bourgeois, 
was often compounded for towards the world 
by every public measure being taken against the 
crime, while private warning secured the persofl 



383 

of the criminal : as in the case of the President 
d'Entrecasteaux, a young man of distinguished 
family in the robe, a president of the parliament 
of Aix, who in the year 1784 murdered his 
wife with circumstances of peculiar atrocity. 
Having fled on the first suspicion of the fact, 
the French government thought proper to 
engage their ministers at foreign courts to de- 
mand the delivery of the culprit wherever he 
might be found. He was soon detected at 
Lisbon, and was already secured by the Portu- 
guese government, when a private order to the 
French minister desired his release, and per- 
mitted his escape from public punishment. 

In a country where all rights but those of the 
sovereign were ill-defined, every order of the 
state endeavoured to arrogate to itself powers 
which did not belong to it, and to encroach on 
the competence of others. (1) Hence the in- 
terminable disputes between the church and 
parliaments of France, which only ceased with 
the existence of both parliaments and church 
during the Revolution. The clergy continued 



(1) Voltaire remarks, " Qu'il y a autant de confusion et 
" d'incertitude sur tous les droits, et sur tous les titres en 
" France qu'il y a d'ordre dans l'administration." — Cata- 
logue des Ecrivans at the beginning of the Steele de Louis 
Quatorze. 



384 

to make an ineffectual stand for privileges and 
observances which the age could no longer to- 
lerate. The strange contrast of the puerile and 
ostentatious observances of the forms of their 
religion, and its unbending intolerance, to the 
opinions of the age, may be some excuse (the 
only one that can be offered) for the scepticism 
and almost thoughtless neglect of all religion, 
which was professed by their philosophers, and 
copied by all the idle persons incapable of any 
reasoning on such subjects, and adopting blindly 
the fashion of the day. Voltaire, and a host of 
subalterns under his command, attacked with 
the arms of ridicule and satire the corruptions of 
a rich and powerful ecclesiastical establishment, 
which had long formed an integral part of the 
state. The members of that establishment, instead 
of disarming their enemies by liberalising their 
practice and purifying their conduct, intrenched 
themselves behind the tenets of an intolerant 
faith ; combating with the blunted weapons of 
papal warfare in support of prejudices no 
longer believed, and privileges no longer admis- 
sible : meanwhile the eternal truths committed 
to their care and cultivation were overrun and 
confounded in the mass of errors with which 
they still endeavoured to cover and conceal 
them. 



385 

The parliaments were in their institution 
courts of justice and of record, to decide in 
the first instance civil and criminal causes in the 
king's name, and to register edicts, laws, and 
regulations respecting the circle of their juris- 
diction. Louis the Fourteenth had deposited 
his will with the parliament of Paris, hoping, by 
its credit with the nation, to ensure the observ- 
ance of his regulations as to the succession of 
his natural children to the throne. The Duke 
of Orleans, whose immediate interests required 
the possession and the abrogation of this will, 
flattered them to give it up. But afterwards, 
when counting on their compliance with his 
wishes, the parliament demanded an account of 
the revenue and of the expenditure of the king, 
on the occasion of enregistering an edict of 
finance, the Regent positively refused the in- 
formation required, and soon convinced them 
that he would not concede, and that they had 
no power to enforce a single tittle derogatory to 
the authority of the infant king. 

The bar was at this time the only medium of 
public speaking on secular subjects, and the 
law the only civil employment in which fathers 
were succeeded by their sons in honourable 
succession. Many of its members were therefore 
distinguished by their eloquence, their abilities, 

c c 



386 

and their integrity. When political subjects 
found their way into discussion in France, 
together with political discontent, they were 
the first, the most informed, and the boldest in 
their remonstrances, their advice, and their enun- 
ciation of the principles of civil liberty. But 
these remonstrances were all made on the false 
supposition, that they had a right to advise, 
power to threaten, and possessed the means of 
enforcing their opinions. The celebrated works 
of Montesquieu had so detailed and so exalted 
the advantages of a representative government, 
that the nation endeavoured to deceive itself 
into an opinion, that the parliaments had suc- 
ceeded to the functions of the states general. 
Its members, wishing to encourage and confirm 
this opinion, adopted a higher tone of juris- 
prudence, and in their remonstrances put tor- 
ward direct stipulations for certain rights of 
the people. In short, they wished and endea- 
voured to be considered as the counsellors of 
the monarch, and controllers of his measures, 
instead of being merely his servants appointed 
by himself to do his bidding, without any power 
but that of public opinion to oppose to his man- 
dates. Instead of being the remains of a 
representation of the people, they were indeed 
a mere representation of the sovereign power, 



387 

to judge that people. " On seroient ces augustes 
" compagnies (says a writer towards the end 
" of the last century), si exactes, si scrupuleuses, 
" sur les formes, et les formalites, si le Roi les 
" sommoit de produire le titre auquel elles 
" prennent connoissance et demandent compte 
" de son administration, auquel elles se donnent 
" pour les representans, et les organs de la 
" nation, auquel elles pretendent etre quelque 
" chose de plus dans le royaume, que des com- 
u missaires subdelegues par sa majeste, pour 
" tenir ses livres, et travailler sur les details 
" qu'elle ne juge pas a propos de se reserver? 
" Le vulgaire ignorant peut bien etre induit a 
" croire que les parlemens ont succedes aux etats 
" generaux du royaume : mais il n 9 y sl pas un 
" Francis, mediocrement instruit, qui ne rit au 
" nez du parlementaire assez vain pour le lui 
" dire. II n'y a pas un parlement qui ait ose 
" laisser entrevoir cette pretention. En effet, 
" qu'y auroit-il de plus capable de ravaler et 
" de revolter une si nombreuse nation, que 
" l'idee d'avoir pour son representant un petit 
" nombre d'hommes, tires d'une seule de ces 
" classes, et qui bien loin d'etre des gens de son 
" choix, sont mis en place sans sa participation ? 
" Y auroit-il rien de plus absurde en politique, 
" que de tenir pour avoues, a 1 utter contre le 

c c 2 



388 

" Roi pour la nation, on a concourir avec le 
" Roi au nom de la nation, des hommes pourvus 
u de leur emploi, conserves dans leur emploi, 
" amovibles et revocables de leur emploi, par 
" le choix, la faveur, le bon plaisir du Roi ? 
" Ne sont-ce pas les gens du Roi, les serviteurs 
du Roi?" (1) And so they proved themselves 
at the beginning of the popular movements in 
France. When called upon to enregister the 
King's declaration for the assembly of the states 
general in 1789, they demanded for the price of 
their compliance, that the Tiers Etats should be 
no more numerous than the other two orders, 
and that they should vote separately. 

This gave the first signal of open war between 
the great body of the nation on one side, and 
every privileged class on the other. The people 
saw their rights abandoned in the most essential 
circumstances by the parliament, whom they had 
hitherto considered as their pn J, The 

younger members of that body, partaking of the 
general enthusiasm of the moment, lost sight of 



(1) Lett res du Chevalier Robert Talbot, de la suite du Due 
de Bedford a Paris en 1762, SUr la Fran . mises en 

Francais par Monsieur Maubert de G . Secretaire du 

feu Roi Elcvtcur Auguste. Amsterdam, 1767. Under this 
disguise, ■ very well-informed French writer has given 
and opinions which he could not, in those days, have an- 
nounced with impunity otherwi-t 



389 

V esprit du corps in the brilliant career they saw 
opening to their talents and to their ambition, 
and thenceforth became almost all strenuous 
advocates of the popular cause. 

One of the first decrees of the constitutional 
assembly was superseding the whole functions 
of the parliaments of France, and resolving on 
an entirely new system in the administration of 
justice. (1) That of the twelve stationary judi- 
catures, as then constituted, had already received 
a severe shock, from the attack made on the 
whole body, during the administration of the 
Due d'Aiguillon in 1771? by the chancellor 
Maupeou. This man, whose plans were as bold 
and bad as his means were base and servile, had 
succeeded in persuading the weak and indolent 
Louis the Fifteenth, that the moment was at last 
come when, by a vigorous exertion of his au- 
thority, he might for ever get rid of the trouble- 



(1) By a decree of the 3d of November, 1789. By ano- 
ther decree of the 15th of December of the same year, 
all the members of the parliaments who had protested 
against the decree of the 3d of November are formally de- 
prived of their rights of citizens. By a decree of the 4th 
of March, 1790, the Chambre des Vacations of the parlia- 
ment of Bourdeaux (that is to say, the provisional tribunal 
supplying the place of the parliament) was deprived of the 
rights of citizenship for having refused to register the de- 
cree of the 3d of November, 1789, 

c c 3 



390 

some opposition of the parliament of Paris, to- 
gether with its assumed right of giving the force 
of laws to all the financial edicts of the crown. 
He at the same time encouraged the parliament 
in the belief, that, by an obstinate and unaccom- 
modating assertion of their power, they 
would increase their popularity with the nation, 
and finally triumph over the weakness of the 
King. The parliament, with many fine phrases 
about rights and liberties (by which they meant 
their own), positively refused to comply with the 
injunctions laid on them by the King in person, 
to cancel their former proceedings against the 
Due d'Aiguillon for misgovernment in the pro- 
vince of Brittany, and to abstain from all future 
discussion on the charge that had been pre- 
ferred against him. These injunctions were 
reiterated by the King, with every mark of 
contempt for their contumacy. The parliament 
hereupon suspended their functions. This 
the point to which Maupeou wished to had 
them. Troops were sent to shut the gates of 
the courts of justice, and to conduct all pre- 
siding in them into exile in different parts of the 
country. The princes of the blood, and many 
of the peers, espoused the cause of the par- 
liament, and entered protests against t : 
measures, partly from the fashion ot' the day fk- 



391 

vouring liberal ideas, partly from the mistaken 
belief that the parliaments protected such ideas. 
Voltaire and some of the philosopher from the 
same mistaken ideas, sided with Maupeou ; as 
they gave him credit for intentions of which he 
was incapable, and were themselves duly sen- 
sible of the vices of the old administration of 
justice. 

But the princes and peers soon grew tired of 
opposition and retirement, and the magistrates 
of exile and idleness. Before the end of 1771, 
the whole of the parliaments of France were dis- 
solved, and such only of their members re- 
employed as would enter the newly-composed 
courts established by the chancellor for the ad- 
ministration of justice. (1) Had these measures 
been wisely followed up, by abolishing torture, 
proscribing punishments of excessive cruelty, 
allowing the accused counsel, and giving publi- 
city to trials — in short, by a timely revision of the 
criminal laws — the new tribunals, constituted to 
replace the parliaments, would have become po- 
pular, the people would have conceived that they 
had gained by the change, and the old parliaments 



(1) They were called conseils superieurs, and were esta- 
blished in the towns of Arras, Artois, Blois, Chalons sur 
Maine, Clermont, Lyon, and Poitiers. 
C C 4 



392 

would have been consigned to the neglect which, 
as a body, they deserved, by their opposition to 
all progressive enlargement of mind and freedom 
of thought. But in this operation of Maupeou's. 
" tout ce que pouvoit interesser la nation fut 
" ecarte. Le Roi neparoissoit revendiquer que 
" la plenitude du pouvoir legislatif, pouvoir que 
" la doctrine de la necessite d'un enregitrement 
" libre(l) transfera, non a la nation, mais aux 
u parlemens; et il etoit aise de voir, qiu* ce 
" pouvoir reuni a la puissance judicaire la 
" plus etendue, partage entre douze tribunaux 
" perpetuels, tendoit a etablie en France une 
" aristocratic tyrannique, plus dangereuse que 
" la monarchic pour la mi ret e, la libcrte, la 
" propriete des citoyens. On poiIVOlt done 
" compter sur les suffrages des homines ecla. 
11 sur eel ui des gens tie lettres, que le parlemenl de 
" Paris avoit egalement blessc par la persecution 
11 et par le mepris, par son attachment aux pre- 
" juges, et ])ar son obstination a rejettcr toutc 
" lumiere nouvelle." ( l 2) But at this time, al- 
thougli late in the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, 
the first great principles of legislation and oi 



(1) Of all financial edicts. 

(2) Vie dc Voltanw prefixed to Beaumarchais 1 Edition of 
his works in octavo. 



393 

vernment had only found their way from the 
cabinets and the writings of the men of letters 
to the societies which they frequented, where the 
adoption and display of such principles served to 
enliven conversation, to animate debate, to give 
a reputation of liberality and patriotism to some 
Grand Seigneurs philosophes, and afford an ho- 
nourable retreat for the amour propre of some 
superannuated coquettes. 

To society, indeed, these discussions were an 
essential advantage. Its most brilliant period in 
France was, doubtless, the last years of its ex- 
istence, before the general dispersion caused by 
the Revolution. Important subjects were, then 
occupying very superior minds. Those who 
entertained them were aware that it was for the 
interest of such subjects that they should be 
discussed, and popularised in general society. 
A new era had arisen in science. The study of 
chemistry was not confined to the professors 
of those arts which most particularly profited 
by its discoveries. It w T as no longer pursued 
only in seclusion from the world, by poring over 
crucibles, and dedicating the whole of life to 
the tedious progress of a series of experiments. 
The results of these experiments, and the great 
discoveries of Lavoisier and of Chaptal, were 
made popular in lectures from Lyceums, and 



304 

spread by elementary books, till chemistry be- 
came a fashionable amusement among those 
with whom it was never likely to be further 
pursued. The results of the analysation of air 
begun by Dr. Priestley and Dr. Black were first 
applied to aerostation in France. The brilliant 
experiments to which it led were then new, and 
had opened to all lively imaginations a thou- 
sand interesting consequences, which experience 
alone could destroy. The writings of Montes- 
quieu, of Voltaire, and of Rousseau bad thrown 
new lights on a thousand topics, which, although 
all connected with the great political interests 
of the moment, had not then degenerated into 
party rage, nor been disgraced by party \ i 
ance. 

It is remarkable that, with these new habits 
of enquiry and discussion on important &ubj< 
in France, had arisen a disposition to enthusiasm, 
and an extraordinary power of belief in every 
thing, except in what their fathers had believed. 
The blind faith, formerly confined to the mys- 
terious dogmas of their church, now extended 
itself (or rather changed its object) to all other 
subjects of enquiry, on which they swallowed 
difficulties and believed in supposed tacts quite 
as mysterious and incomprehensible as tran sub- 
stantiation. Unaccustomed to patient invi 



395 

gation, they generalised every subject, and found 
supposed analogies between material and moral 
nature almost always erroneous. Thus, the long- 
abandoned nonsense of the general influence of 
the magnet was revived by the ignorant empiric 
Mesmer, who persuaded thousands of what he 
called the " secret of nature" founded on a 
supposed analogy between the well-known and 
well-defined properties of the loadstone and of 
the electric fluid, with this mysterious universal 
fluid whose powers escaped all analysis, but 
which, according to his doctrine, ruled not only 
the stars, but the animal, vegetable, and mineral 
kingdoms. 

About the same time, a peasant of Burgundy, 
of the name of Bleton, instigated perhaps by those 
who knew more of the matter than himself, ap- 
peared with the exploded notion of the divinatory 
wand to discover hidden sources of water. If he 
began by deceiving others, he soon deceived him- 
self. He seemed astonished at his own powers, 
when the miraculous rod turned voluntarily 
round on his fingers. The art of quickening at 
pleasure the motion of his heart he certainly 
possessed, as he made his pulse keep pace with 
the volutions of the divining rod. He was led 
about from chateau to chateau in the neigh- 
bourhood of Paris. All went well, until many 



396 

among those who consulted him found, on taking 
the miraculous rod into their own hands, that, 
as far as its movement gave the power of dis- 
covering hidden springs, they possessed it as 
much as the professor himself. But, while asto- 
nished and almost frightened at their own powers, 
their opinion w r as much lowered of poor Bleton, 
who soon sunk into insignificance, and his science 
into contempt. 

Madame de Stael (a partial observer of the 
society out of which she thought there was 
desirable existence) declares that in France, 
" II y a sur chaque sujet tant de phrases toutes 
" faites, qu'un sot, avec leura secours, parle 
" quelque tenia assez bien, et ressemble momen- 
" tanement a un homme d'esprit." With this 
assistance the discussion em- 

inent, and systems of education, the criticism 
and the abuse of the national music and of the 
national religion, took place in every drawing- 
room in Paris. 

A talent for conversation and for colloquial 
elegance of expression had long been cultiva: 
not only as an accomplishment, but as a means 
of success in life. A bon-mot, a diverting story, a 
laughable naivete of somebody unaccustomed to 
Paris, well recounted, were rewarded with ap- 
plause hardly less Mattering than that of the 



397 

theatre. Many persons were eagerly on the watch 
for such materials to work on. A power of 
making the most of them was the art of being 
popular and fashionable in society ; for an art it 
must be called, as no one scrupled to add 
whatever they thought necessary to give effect 
to their tale. x 

To be in fashion (d'etre a la mode) was the 
highest dignity society could confer. It was 
absolute power while it lasted, during which the 
possessor could do no wrong ; but " ere well " 
the pleasing state " was felt, 'twas o'er." It was 
acquired by a thousand means, but was to be 
retained by none. Both sexes were equally 
susceptible of its honours ; and it must not ,be 
supposed that wit, or beauty, or talents alone 
shared them. A well-chosen dress at some 
great fete, a lively exercise of some trifling 
acquirement, a happy sally in conversation, an 
appearance of naivete in a rank or situation in 
which it is rarely found, or a neglect of the 
established and arbitrary code of etiquette in 
dress or manner, and a thousand other such tri- 
fles, were all capable of conferring this capricious 
supremacy. Lord Orford, in a letter from Paris 
to Gray the poet in I766, gives a ludicrous ac- 
count of his possession of it, on occasion of his 
supposed letter from the King of Prussia to 



398 

Rousseau, and of the manner in which it passed 
away from him. (1) 

" Mais alors on rioit de tout en France, surtout 
" dans un certain ordre de personnes. Homines 
" et femmes egalement spirituels, egalement 
" ambitieux, ne connoissaient d'occupation que 
11 l'intrigue et la galanterie. On ne sembloit 
" eprouver que deux besoins, — celui d'echapper 
" a l'ennui, et d'avancer sa fortune. Un desir 
" ardent de plaire et de briller pretait a la con- 
11 versation, sur quelque sujet qu'elle s'arretat, le 
" ton du badinage ou de la raillerie. L'habitude 
M de s'observer entre eux, pour se flatter ou pour 
" se nuire donnait aux gens du monde une rare 
" aptitude a peindre d'un seul trait les ridicule 
" ou le t ravers.' ' (2) 



(1) " You must not attribute my intimacy with Paris to 
" curiosity alone ; an accident unlocked the door for me. 
" That passe-partout, called the fashion, baa made them fly 
" open. And what do you think was that fahlOD ? — I. my- 
M self. Yes, like Queen Elinor in the ballad. I sunk at 
11 Charing Cross, and have risen in the Fauxbourg St. Ger- 
" main. — Thank the Lord, though this is the first month, 
" it is the last week of my reign, and I shall resign my 
" crown with great satisfaction to a bouillie of chesnuts 
" which is just invented, and whose annals will be illus- 
" trated by so many indigestions, that Paris will not want 
" any thing else these three weeks." — Lord Orford's Works, 
vol.v. p. 367. 

(2) Essai sur les Mceurs vt Usages du Dix-septie 
prefixed to the Memoires de Bricnne, tom. i. p. 1« 



399 

The theatre still continued to furnish a constant 
and ever-renewed subject of conversation. Dis- 
cussion on dramatic authors, and their works, 
required just such a degree of literature as all 
Frenchmen of good company were now sup- 
posed to possess. But even that moderate por- 
tion of reading was by no means universal ; and 
those are still living who may remember, that a 
lively and brilliant member of their society, after 
listening at the theatre for some moments to 
the harmonious verses of Racine's Andromaque 
exclaimed, "Ce sont de beaux vers! qui a fait 
" 9a, Madame?" 

Madame de Stael has said, that few people 
read any work in France but to talk of it ; before 
her day, before Voltaire and Rousseau had made 
reading fashionable, the same order of persons 
talked, and talked well, without any assistance at 
all from books. It is quite remarkable what agree- 
able, rational, conversible, and even well-informed 
persons Frenchmen became, after the middle of 
life, having received no early education but what 
was to be acquired from an abbe for tutor in the 
paternal house, or following the public lectures of 
a college under the same tuition. After this em- 
ployment of the first fourteen or fifteen years of 
life, their time was immediately divided between 
the idleness of a garrison and the futilities of a 



400 

court. Of such was composed the first society in 
France, and hence was selected her generals, her 
statesmen, and the dignitaries of her church. The 
men of letters formed a class apart; they were 
admitted to a footing of equality in the drawing- 
rooms of their superiors, because absolutely 
precluded from the possibility of rivalling them 
elsewhere. If born, as most of them were, in 
the middle or lower orders of society, they could 
neither rise by regular service to commands in 
the armies of France, nor soar above the rank of 
secretary in her diplomacy, and were precluded 
from every post of honour, either at her court or 
in her provinces. 

It was under these chilling circumstances that 
the d'Alemberts, the Diderots, the Clump forts, 
the Marmontels, and the Morrellets, by dint of 
much mental labour, a careful cultivation of 
their own powers of mind, severe privations in 
their early youth, and generally by long ob- 
scurity in the outset of their career, rose to dis- 
tinction. The social equality this distinction 
conferred must have made them doubly sensible 
to all the more material distinctions which the 
institutions of their country denied them. No 
wonder, therefore, at their often exaggerated 
opinions on the abuses of her government and 
religion ; no wonder, when th( fie was once 



401 

begun between the body of the people and the 
privileged classes, that the men of letters threw 
the whole weight of their influence into the scale 
of the party to which they naturally belonged. 
As little wonder can be excited, that in such a 
struggle against such opponents, they were imme- 
diately successful. 

If the men of the privileged classes often 
surprised by the manner in which they con- 
trived to supply the insufficiency and the neglects 
of their education, the endowments of the women 
were yet more extraordinary. Universally edu- 
cated in convents, which they only left at the age 
of fifteen or sixteen to be married to a husband 
of the choice of their parents, after the first 
year of their marriage, they were launched into a 
world of which they were perfectly ignorant; yet 
within a short time afterwards many of them be- 
came lively, intelligent companions, interested in 
all the great interests of society, capable of nice 
discrimination of character, and admirers of what- 
ever was admirable in taste and in literature. The 
society of men of letters, which they sought as a 
fashion, aided them to supply the defects of their 
early instruction, and, together with the more 
efficient education given by the world, in the 
progress of human life, prepared them, when the 
age of admiration was over, to become the 

D D 



402 

rational and attached friends of those whom they 
had charmed by the more frivolous attractions of 
their youth. In old age, they retreated into 
their own houses. Here, surrounded by a much 
smaller circle, of which they were the centre, the 
attentions of their children or nearest relations 
were seldom wanting to them. Were this picture 
contrasted with that of Englishwomen of the 
same period, the comparison would not be in their 
favour. The Englishwoman was (as at present) 
almost always educated at home, and seldom 
married till near, or past twenty ; when her 
education was over, and when time had been 
allowed to cultivate her talents, and to form 
her character. Her marriage was always with 
her approbation, generally of her choice. With 
all these advantages, in much the same time 
which raised the French woman to the rank of 
an intelligent social being, the Englishwoman too 
often sunk into a gossiping housewife. Neglect- 
ing all the smaller graces of life, she boasted that 
she cared for nothing on earth but her husband 
and children, considered ignorance of the world 
as a proof of superior virtue, and narrow-minded- 
ness as a qualification of her sex : or if her dis- 
position took a livelier turn, her vapid and 
vulgar pursuit of pleasure, and ideas of societv, 
were circumscribed to being always in a crowd, 



403 

to visiting in the greatest number of houses, and 
receiving the greatest number of people in her 
own ; weighing the merits of those with whom 
she associated by no other scale than the enter- 
tainments that they gave, and being as unfit as 
she was unwilling ever to find herself in any 
society small enough to admit of further distinc- 
tion than that of " black, brown, or fair." 

To these characters there were doubtless in- 
numerable exceptions: many Englishwomen were 
already distinguished as much by their accom- 
plishments as by their virtues ; and many French- 
women fluttered through a youth of folly and dis- 
sipation to a neglected and contemptible old age. 

It must be here remarked, and the remark 
is decisive, of the relative moral feelings of the 
two countries — that a Frenchwoman of high rank 
and great connexions, possessing the means of 
an agreeable independent existence, whatever 
might have been the errors and misconduct of 
her youth, had it in her power, by various ways 
in later life, to regain her respectability, and 
reinstate herself in her former social existence. 
No Englishwoman could ever hope to do the 
same : her youthful errors separated her for ever 
from her former self: 

11 In vain with tears her loss she might deplore ; 
" She sunk, like stars, that fall to rise no more." 

D D 2 



404 



On the female world of France, thus consti- 
tuted, burst forth the doctrines of Rousseau, 
promulgated in language which captivated the 
passions of those whose understandings might 
sometimes have detected his sophisms. The 
effect was incalculable : maternal love became 
as much a fashion as soon afterwards balloons 
and animal magnetism. Every body was to 
suckle, and every body was to educate their 
children, however disqualified, either by nature 
or circumstances, from the power of doing 
either. Swaddling-clothes and convents were 
equally abjured, and all the female world pro- 
fessed feelings, which, it* they had been acted 
upon, would have swallowed up every other 
social duty. But the whole edifice of society, 
as it was then constructed, and their own pre- 
viously-established habits, counteracted c 
neither the less dangerous nor the less ridiculou* 
for proceeding from a right principle. 

The many strange anomalies which existed in 
the manners of Trance (1) before her Revolution 



(1) Voltaire thus states some of these anomalies with his 
usual acuteness: — u II n'y a. je crois. nul pays au monde, 
" oil Ton trouve tant de contradictions qu'en France. Ail- 
" leurs, les rangs sunt regies, et il n'y a point de | 
u honorable, sans defl functions qui lui sent attaches : mais 
11 en Prance an Due et Pair ne sait pas seulemeut la place 



405 

formed a part, and a very efficient part, of the 
discordance between her habits and her feelings, 
between her opinions and her institutions, which 
led to the entire subversion of the latter. 

The Revolution opened an endless field to 
the intriguing habits of the sex in France. Be- 
fore the first excesses began, and while the 
Revolution was still confined to opinions, the 
exaggerated sentiments of the women, both for 
and against the popular cause, did much harm 
to the parties they espoused. Every saloon in 
Paris became an arena, where the arguments for 
the old and the new systems were brought for- 
ward with an extravagance on the one side, and 
repelled with a violence and a contempt on the 
other, which the guillotine had not yet silenced. 
Those adopting the sentiments of the popular 
party beheld schemes of Utopian perfection about 
to be realised, where the others saw nothing but 
the extinction of all European civilisation. The 

" qu'il a dans le Parlement. Le president est m£prise a la 
" cour precisement parce qu'il possede une charge qui fait 
" sa grandeur a la ville. ' Un eveque preche l'humilite (si 
" tant est qu'il preche); mais ii vous refuse sa porte, si 
" vous ne l'appellez pas monseigneur. Le chancelier n'a 
" pas l'honneur de manger avec le Roi, et il precede tous 
" les Pairs du royaume. Le Roi donne des gages aux co- 
" mediens, et le cure" les excommunient," &c. — Voltaire, 
Lettres, torn. Hi. p. 69. 

D D S 



406 

feelings of both were excited and embittered 
by all the individual advantages which were to 
be lost or to be gained by the prevalence of their 
opinions, to which must be added the re-action of 
long-repressed vanity,and long-suffered mortifica- 
tions on the one side, and of attachment to long- 
enjoyed privileges and gratifications on the other. 
Many of the great aristocratieal ladies, after the 
brilliant period of youth and youthful attractions 
was over, found themselves, from their rank and 
connexions, still surrounded by a large circle, 
assiduously frequented by their old admirers and 
friends, from habit and similarity of' taste : by 
the young of both sex >rm their manners, 

and by the men of letters to form their ta>tc. A 
more enviable retreat for female vanity and ^'It- 
importance can hardly be imagined ! Their 
opinion was often taken on credit of work- 
genius, before they were submitted to the public, 
and their verdict established many a reputation 
both for talents and beauty, which would new r 
have been obtained without their assistance. 

No wonder such persons saw, in the abolition 
of lettres de cachet and Mgnorial rights, ami in 
the union of the three chambers of deputies, the 
extinction of all taste and selection in private 
life, and of all order and well-being in polities. 
No wonder that the last efforts of their power 



407 

were employed in influencing the men of their 
society to oppose doctrines, which many of 
those men were too ignorant to defend on 
broader and more general principles. Among 
the women of rank, those who professed en- 
larged views and popular feelings were so 
abused by their own cast, and their conduct 
and sentiments so falsified, that they could not 
always avoid adopting more than they intended 
of the opinions of the opposite party, and sided 
with their enemies, because expelled by their 
friends. All the women who, in the second 
order of society, were the friends and com- 
panions of the men of letters, and whose minds 
and sentiments had been improved and cul- 
tivated by their company — all these, besides 
their general views of public advantage, had 
their own individual reasons for forwarding 
by every means in their power the destruction 
of certain artificial barriers, which had some- 
times stopped them in the career of female dis- 
tinction, and often mortified them in the smaller 
details of private life. 

In the dreadful scenes of licence and anarchy 
which ensued, the women of all the lower classes 
displayed a disgraceful superiority in violence 
and cruelty. It may be urged, on the other side, 
that during the whole course of the political con- 

D D 4f 



408 

vulsions of their country, it is among the women 
of all ranks that are likewise to be found the most 
remarkable instances of heroic courage, of incor- 
ruptible faith, and of patient self-devotion. 

But these, experience teaches, belong to the 
sex in general whenever placed in circumstances 
where the vivacity and mobility of their feel 
are strongly excited, and the powers of their 
minds left unfettered by the accustomed tram- 
mels of society. 

It is not meant here to recall to the fatigued 
remembrance the horrors that accompanied the 
political agitations of the first twelve yean of the 
French Revolution, when crime became familiar, 
and almost ridiculous, From the folly 

that often accompanied it, and folly became 
odious, from the atrocious crimes it often dictated 
It is our business only to on the remark- 

able differences in the conduct and feelings of 
England and Trance under similar circumstances 
of popular excitation, and its ( 
life and character of the two nati. 

During the whole period which elapsed in 
England from the meeting of the long parliament 
in 1642 to the Restoration of the house 
Stuart in 1660, while the political discontents 
the nation were increassd by the Btrong 
r.ient of religious differences — while it was 



409 

agitated by two sects equally enemies to each 
other, and to the established worship of the 
country, — but one solitary instance can be 
adduced of assassination from political or re- 
ligious motives, — that of Sharpe, Archbishop 
of St. Andrew's in Scotland, — nor of the people 
forcing the arm of power, and taking punish- 
ment into their own hands. The occasional 
rencontres of the military with the conventiclers 
and religious enthusiasts of that nation collected 
in arms to support their covenant, and defend 
themselves from the establishment of episcopacy, 
cannot be called individual murder or private 
revenge. The national character of England 
suffered much more from the abuse of juridical 
power and of the forms of law under the re- 
establishment of the House of Stuart, than it did 
during the most agitated moments of civil dis- 
sension. 

Charles the First, while yet in possession of 
undisputed power, when he made his fatal at- 
tempt on the individual liberty of his subjects in 
the person of five members of the House of 
Commons, came himself, and openly demanded 
them of the body of which they formed a part: 
when they were as openly withdrawn from his 
indignation, he found no power to further its 
effects, nor no individuals to espouse its cause. 



410 



When religious fanaticism at its height in 
Edinburgh forcibly rejected in a popular tumult 
the form of worship which the government had 
dictated, joint stools and benches were the 
missile weapons which served the wrath of the 
triumphant party ; but the dagger was as little 
thought of as the lamp-post by either side. 
When their fanatical associates in England de- 
faced the magnificent Gothic cathedrals, which, 
having been constructed for the Roman Catholic 
religion, recalled to them all its abuses, the 
ministers who officiated in these cathedrals, al- 
though suspected of wishing to recall such 
abuses, were left unmolested. 

When the infatuated James the Second had 
abandoned his metropolis, and it was known 
that no accommodation was on foot between him 
and the Prince of Orange, already in the heart of 
the kingdom — while a habit of obedience to the 
laws was in fact the only executive government 
in London — a rabble of apprentices and populace 
assembled in crowds and broke the windows of 
such houses as they believed harboured priest- or 
papists, not sparing even those of foreign mi- 
nisters ; but no one was killed except by ac- 
cident, few houses were burnt, and still fewer 
robberies committed. 

Even JefVerics, the hated Jetferies, who was 



411 

known to have been the ready and unrelent- 
ing engine of the misgoverninent of his master, 
and had outraged the laws committed to his 
administration, when he was discovered in 
Wapping, under the disguise of a sailor, endea- 
vouring to make his escape from a justly-irri- 
tated people, — even he was only kicked and 
curled about by the mob, and carried by them 
immediately before the Lord Mayor (Sir John 
Chapman), who they insisted should commit him 
to the Tower. 

In France, at the first tumultuous meetings 
at the Hotel de Ville, the lamp-iron was un- 
hesitatingly resorted to, to inflict summary pu- 
nishment on those who had fallen under the 
displeasure of the mob ; and the first proof of 
their having always within their reach so ready 
an engine to execute the dictates of their savage 
vengeance was received with universal acclam- 
ation. The lamp-iron yet remains at the corner 
of the Place de Greve, to which Foulon 
(one of the first who thus perished) was sus- 
pended in July, 1790. He had been joint 
Secretary at War after the first exile of Neckar. 
He knew himself to be so unpopular, both 
from a reputation of avarice, and from pro- 
fessing despotic sentiments, that he had cir- 
culated a report of his own death by apoplexy, 



412 

and had concealed himself in a country-house 
at Viry, about four leagues from Paris. The 
syndic of the village arrested him, and sent 
him under an escort of the inhabitants to 
Paris. They obliged him to walk on foot the 
whole way during the night. He had been 
reputed to say, that " an rqyaume lien admi* 
nlstre dtoit celui ou le peuple broutc Vlierbe del 
cliamps, and that if lie were minister, il Jcroit 
manger de Join atuc Francois : his tormentors, 
therefore, put a collar of nettles round hifl D 
gave him a nosegay of thistles, and loaded him 
with hay on his back. Thus accoutred he was 
conducted to the Hotel tie Yille, when 
effort was made in vain by the magistrates to 
save him from the popular fury. In vain La 
Fayette harangued, in vain the wretched man 
showed himself at the windows in the power of 
the police, and willing to be conducted to 
prison. The mob overpowered all resistance, 
broke into the Hotel tie Yille, and dragged 
their victim to the lamp-iron. Here his suffer- 
ings were prolonged by the rope twice breaking ; 
and while a new rope was sought, he lay near a 
quarter of an hour on the pavement where he 
had fallen, overwhelmed with blows and out- 
rages from the infuriate populace, who, alter at 



413 

last hanging him, cut off his head, and paraded 
it through the streets of Paris. 

During all the similar horrors that followed in 
rapid succession, the daily pages of the Mo- 
niteur (certainly a faithful chronicle of the deeds 
of the day) recorded at the same moment the 
follies of children intermixed with the crimes 
of madmen. On the very same day that the 
National Assembly bestowed the ridiculous title 
of orator of the human race on a mad Prussian, 
who had already changed his name of John 
Baptist Cloots to that of Anacharsis, to avoid 
(as he professed) a Christian appellation — on 
that same day, the 21st June, 1790, the same 
assembly, with hardly more deliberation, annihi- 
lated by a single vote nobility in France (as far 
as titles can annihilate nobility.) A prohibition 
against any one being in future called by any 
title or distinction of honour was moved by a 
Mr. Lambert de Villefranche en Rourge. His 
motion was immediately supported by Mr. 
Charles Lameth, and, alas ! by La Fayette. 
Four persons, among whom we find the name of 
the Abbe Maury, spoke against the efficacy of 
the motion, requested a second hearing, and 
defended the cause of their cast. But the ques- 
tion was so violently called for as to deprive 
others of the power of being heard, and the de- 



414 



cree was made with such applause as to preclude 
all future debate. 

Two years afterwards, when the assembly was 
occupied with the trial of the Brissotin party, — 
a trial which involved the political existence and 
life of sixty-two of the most leading of its mem- 
bers, whose condemnation delivered over the 
country to all the ruthless horrors of anarchy, 
— when deputations from the sections of Paris, 
not satisfied with the long list of victims daily- 
sent to the guillotine, were insisting on the in- 
stitution of twelve ambulatory tribunals, who, by 
way of simplifying the work of daughter, were 
to be authorized to judge and condemn without 
any other Jbrms than those thei/ should think 
necessary fir their om conviction ; Chaum 
the Procureur General of the commune of 
Paris, at the head of the deputation, ai 
cates the measure IB the following idd 
to that party in the Convention of which he 
was himself a worthy member : " El v 
"Montague, a jamais celebre dans lei }> 
" de Phistoire, soyez le Sinai des Y\\ lan- 

" cez au milieu des foudi\ neb 

" de la justice, et de la volonte tin peuple. 
" Inebranlable an milieu des orages amonc< 
" par Taristocratie, agitez-vous et tressaillez a la 
M voix du peuple! Assez long-terns le ten con- 



415 

" centre de l'amour du bien public a bouillone 
" dans vos flancs. Qu'il fasse une irruption 
" violente ! Montagne sainte ! devenez un volcan 
" dont les laves brulantes detruisent a jamais 
" l'espoir du mechant, et calcinent les coeurs ou 
" se trouve l'idee de la royaute. Plus de 
u quartier, plus de misericorde aux traitres. 
" Jettons entre eux et nous les barrieres de 
M l'eternite."(l) 

It must be confessed, that the homely meta- 
phors of our pulpit in 1642, of which some spe- 
cimens have been given in the foregoing pages, 
and all that pulpit aspired to produce on its 
audience, sink before this open exhortation to 
anarchy and slaughter. But we find in the lan- 
guage of both, the same senseless violence, the 
same abjuration of all reason in argument, and 
all taste in expression, and even the same abuse 
of scriptural ideas. Our sectaries, indeed, es- 
tranged from the world, and uninformed by its 
intercourse, preached up insurrection as a duty 
towards God, but confined their malevolence and 
their vengeance to the creeds and consciences of 
their opponents ; while the French demagogues, 
having formally deposed God, and dispensed 
with all creeds, laboured to assert their own 



(1) Moniteur, September 7. 1793. 



416 

omnipotence in evil, and assuming to themselves 
the avenging power, gave a salutary example of 
what that power becomes in any human hands. 

In the same sitting in which this exhortation 
to murder had been addressed with such vehe- 
mence to willing hearers, the same orator re- 
quests them to turn their attention to the garden 
of the Tuilleries(l), that former domain of the 
crown, on which the eyes of republicans can 
only repose with pleasure when it is made to pro- 
duce useful crops, and medicinal plants, that may 
be wanted in the hospitals, instead of leaving 
the statues and other objects which fed the lux- 
ury and pride of kings ! 

It has been said, that the Jacobin party pur- 
posely mixed these trifles with their most violent 
measures, as Cromwell drew the pen &CT068 i 
brow's face, when signing the death-warrant of 
Charles the First, by way of preventing a too 
serious consideration of what they were doing. — 

(1) " Nous vous prions de jettcr v r cet im- 

" mense jardin del Tuilleries : le> mux del republicai 
" reposeront ayec plus de plaisir quand il produira del objets 
" de premiere necessity No vaut-il pas mieux laire croitre 

? del plantes dont manquent lei hopiteaux, que d'y 1.. 
" des statues, des lys, et autres objets, aliment du I 
M l'orgueil des rois ? — Dessault demande que les Champs 
u Elvsees soient en memo terns que les Tuilleries converti> 
" en culture utile." — Monitau\ Sept. 7. 1~ 






417 

But in France the habits and disposition of the 
country dispensed with the necessity of such pre- 
cautions. We look with surprise at the number of 
theatres open every night in Paris, and the various 
meetings for dancing and amusement, during the 
dreadful years 1793, 4, and 5, when the popula- 
tion was decimating by the guillotine, the tocsin 
for ever ringing in their ears, the drum beating to 
arms, and the domicile of every one liable to be 
entered nightly by an armed force, competent 
to drag them to almost immediate slaughter. (1) 
It has been the object of many of the French 
writers on their Revolution to attempt to prove 
that most of the atrocities which accompanied it 
were excited by foreign agents, paid for by 
foreign money, and often executed by foreign 
hands. But the overflowing population of such 
a city as Paris, called out of the abject political 
existence which we have endeavoured to show 
belonged to them before the Revolution, — this 



(1) Gensonne (one of the Brissotins) had obtained a de- 
cree against " des visites domiciliaires et des arrestations 
" pendant la nuit." Billaud de Varennes, on the fourth 
September, 1793, succeeded in reversing the decree, saying, 
" II faut que nous allions demeler nos ennemis dans leurs 
" tanieres. A peine la nuit et le jour suffisent-ils pour les 
" arreter."— Moniteur, Sept. 7. 1793. 

E E 



418 

population, excited by men who, educated in the 
habits of despotism, found themselves suddenly 
in possession of the power under which they 
had often smarted — surely these causes will 
be judged more efficient in producing all the ex- 
cesses which ensued, than any extraneous a- 
ance that can be imagined to have prompted 
or abetted them. Was it England, was it the 
despotic governments of the continent, was it 
her brother and nephew on the throne of Au- 
stria, that forced the representatives of the 
people to bring to a sham trial the wretched 
widow of Louis the Sixteenth ? Was it the gold 
of Pitt that procured the death of his ill-fated 
son by the slow and cruel means of ill-u- 
and every species of moral and physical I 
Was it the intrigues of the Spanish branch of 
the Bourbons which influenced the unn< 
condemnation of the exemplary but insignificant 
sister of Louis the Sixteenth, known only by her 
devoted attachment to those who had peris 
before her? Doubtless all the privileged classes 
in France, whose ignorance and whose preju- 
dices had, in the first instance, prevented their 
advancing with the advancing spirit of the age, 
and, in the second instance, had betrayed into 
the irrecoverably false step of emigration ; 
all these persons, doubtless, endeavoured to 



419 

regain the power they had lost by the same 
wretched means they had employed to retain it, 
— by false statements both of their moral and 
physical strength to the governments to whom 
they applied for assistance, and to their country 
by promises never meant to be kept, by a sub- 
stitution of phrases for facts, and by offering as 
favours what were demanded as rights, — always 
with the false and weak idea, that by corruption, 
treachery, and intrigue, they could succeed in 
re-instating themselves, and in forcing the ma- 
jority of a great and informed people again to 
submit to the uncontrolled government of an 
ignorant and selfish minority. 

The conduct of the surrounding governments 
of Europe towards the French nation at this 
period brought with it (as regarded themselves) 
the heavy punishments due to folly, credulity, 
and prejudice, but must not therefore be branded 
with the opprobrious crimes of republican 
France. 

Without comparing the conduct of the two 
nations in bringing their chief magistrate to a 
public trial and execution — a conduct which, 
although unauthorized by any law, or justified 
by any necessity, may, in the hands of Provi- 
dence, have, in both cases, been productive of 
some good, which formed no part of the mo- 

E E 2 



420 

tives of the persons concerned in it ; — however 
this may be, the trial and execution of the un- 
fortunate Marie Antoinette leaves an unqualified 
and undivided disgust on the mind ; a certain 
feeling of humiliation at belonging to the same 
nature with those capable of being betrayed into 
such excesses. Neither the history of our own, 
nor that of any other civilised country, produces 
any thing to compare with this useless, this 
voluntary atrocity ; whether we consider the 
situation, the character, the feelings, and the 
faults of the individual, or the nullity and 
perfect vagueness of the accusations brought 
against her, or the puerile, irregular, law 
manner in which they were supported. Dulaure, 
an author who will not be suspected of partiality 
to royalty, says of this trial, " En ne Penvi- 
" sageant que sous les rapports politiques, cette 
" mort infligee a la Reine de France, Marie 
" Antoinette, etoit une grande faute, privoit la 
" nation Franchise d'un gage dont cette nation 
" cut pu tirer un grand avantage, et d'un 61 
" precieux." 

The manner of conducting the trial was no 
less disgraceful than its event. Any spectator 
was allowed to become a witness, and any wit- 
ness to bring forward any report, not only 
of their own opinions, but of the opinions 



421 



of others. The President (Hermann) thus 
examines an officer of the police who had been 
on service at the Temple during the confinement 
of the prisoner, but had absolutely denied 
having had any communication with her. — 
President. " Quelle est votre opinion de Pac- 
" cusee ?" — " Si elle est coupable, elle doit etre 
" jugee." — Pres. " La croyez-vous patriote ?" 
" Non." — Pres. " Croyez-vous qu'elle veuille 
" la Republique?" — " Non." (1) 

The Comte d'Estaing, called as a witness of 
inculpation, it is satisfactory to find not sullying 
his honour by any base compliances with the 
desire of the wretches in whose power his own life 
stood, as well as that of the Queen. His evidence 
must be given in his own words. " II declare qu'il 
" connoit Paccusee depuis qu'elle est en France, 
" qu'il a meme a se plaindre d'elle, mais il n'en 
" dira pas moins la verite, qui est, qu'il n'a rien a 
" dire contre Pacted'accusation." On being ques- 
tioned as to what passed at Versailles when the 
royal family were brought to Paris, he said, " J'ai 
" entendu des conseillers de cour dire a Paccusee 
" que le peuple de Paris arrivoit pour la massa- 
" crer, et qu'il falloit qu'elle partit. A quoi 
u elle avoit repondu avec un grand car act ere, 



(l) Moniteur, October 15. 1793. 
E E 3 



422 



" ■ Si les Parisiens viennent ici pour m'assassiner, 
" c'est aux pieds de mon mari que je le serai, 
" mais je ne fuirai pas.' " This grand carac- 
tere seems to have had not the smallest effect 
on her brutalised judges, although her whole 
conduct during the trial confirmed the assertion. 
It was admirable — it was above her character, 
until that character bad been tried and fortified 
by her cruel misfortunes. Calm and collected, 
she never answered but simply to the fact, and 
never alluded to the extraneous abuse with 
which she was loaded. The President of the 
court on all occasions, and in every question 
put to her, showed himself her decided ene- 
my, and abused her previous conduct and 
supposed opinions throughout the whole exa- 
mination. She remained unmoved except by 
the horror of an insane accusation, which the 
wretches who made it knew to be impossible : this 
she repelled with a dignity to which her strong 
emotion (noticed in the official report of the trial) 
must have given additional force. Her conduct 
could not but make a considerable effect on the 
public admitted to the trial, however little it 
made on the tribunal. Robespierre is reported 
to have been so violently angry when he heard 
of the answer of Marie Antoinette to the infa- 
mous accusation of Hebert as to have broken 



423 

his plate at dinner, exclaiming, " Cet imbecille 
" d'Hcbert ! II faut qu'il en fasse son Agrippine, 
" et qu'il lui fournisse a son dernier moment ce 
" triomphe d'interet public." (1) And we find 
in a report made to the Jacobin society of the 
progress of the trial, the whole attempted to be 
treated with the sort of indifference belonging 
to an every-day business, " Quant a Marie 
" Antoinette, ce n'est qu'une femme ordi- 
" naire, que sa fierte meme decele, et que ses 
" larmes ont trahies. Elle est prodigieusement 
" changee." (2) 

She received her sentence without emotion, 
shaking her head only, when asked by the Presi- 
dent if she had any thing to say against its exe- 
cution ; and she left the court without uttering a 
word, or addressing any discourse either to her 
judges or to the public. This was at half past 
four on the 16th of October. The very next day, 
" Marie Antoinette, veuve Capet, en deshabille 
" pique blanc, a ete conduite au supplice de 
" la meme maniere que les autres criminels." 
(Although in the same official report is men- 
tioned 30,000 men forming " une double haie 
" dans les rues ou elle a passe.") " Arriveea la 



(1) Villate, Causes Secretes de la Revolution. 

(2) Moniteur, October 29. 1793. 

E E 4 



424 

" Placedela Revolution, ses regards se sont tour- 
" nes du cote du Jardin National (the Tuilleries), 
" on apercevoit alors but son visage les signes 
" d'une vive emotion. Elle est montee ensuite 
" sur Pechafaud avec assez de courage. A midi 
" un quart sa tete est tombee, et Pexecuteur l'a 
M montrec au peuple au milieu des cris long-tems 
" prolongcs, de Vive la Rlpublique!" 

No account of th n's last Bufferings can 

be so affecting, nor do her so much honour, 
this statement by her murderers. The >ame 
Moniteur which records this cruel and >cn- 
triumph over a great, a fallen, and a helpless 
victim, condescends to announce the punishment 
of eight days' prison inflicted on a ci-devanl f 
d'arme, " Pour avoir trempe son mouchoir dans 
11 le sang de la veuve Capet ! " (1) 

No wonder that a proud and high-spirited 
people should wish to -hake oil" any part of the 
weight of degradation which fell on the whole 
nation during the three lor. gnof 

terror. No wonder that they Wish to confine 
the atrocities and the follies (tor they remained 
inseparable) which stain this disgraceful period 
to a few individuals, sold to foreign influence, 
and the general acquiescence of the country to a 

(1) Moniteur. Octoh 



4>°25 

combination of circumstances. This combin- 
ation will be found to resolve itself into what we 
have already mentioned as the more than efficient 
causes of the national disgrace, — the previously- 
degraded political existence of a people, remark- 
able for the quickness and mobility of their feel- 
ings, and the talents and ambition of the middle 
orders of society, who, unprepared by any pre- 
vious education for the exercise of civil liberty, 
found themselves suddenly in possession of abso- 
lute power. This quickness and mobility of feel- 
ing, which often originated, and in every instance 
increased, the evils of the Revolution, was like- 
wise the cause of those sudden and momentary 
returns to humanity which sometimes illumed 
the blackest periods of its history. Some bold 
reply, some flash of heroism, struck the giddy 
minds of their murderous mobs, or more mur- 
derous juries, and gave them back for a moment 
to mercy, although not to common sense. 

The same habits of thoughtlessness came to 
the aid of their oppressed victims. In the 
crowded prisons and houses of detention 
where the fatal sledges came every day to 
take a part of their inhabitants to the certain 
death then implied by trial before the revo- 
lutionary tribunal, the remaining inmates di- 
verted their attention from their own impending 



426 

fate, and from that of their companions, by 
making epigrams on their persecutors, by music 
meetings, by singing, and every other amusement 
of which a large society was capable. 

This animal courage, for surely it deserves no 
better name, has been celebrated by their writers 
more than it would seem to deserve. One of 
their historians, the most devoted to what was 
then nick-named liberty, himself an agent and a 
victim of the demagogues of the day, after coolly 
reporting contemporary horrors, seems to be in- 
sensible of the character he imposes on his coun- 
try, when he says, " Le peuple, prisonnier ou 
" non, maifi asservis sous une tyrannic cpouvant- 
" able, sembloit jouir ftvec ses chaines. On le for- 
" coit,pour ainsi dire, a lire de BOO esclavage."(l) 
A nation which plays with its chains, and lau 
at its own slavery, has much to learn and much 
to suffer before it can be capable of freedom. 
Had we laughed at ship-money, and satisfied 
ourselves with epigrams on the five members of 
the House of Commons demanded by Charles the 
First, he would have reigned in uncontrolled 
power. Had we taken Cromwell's major- 
generals and military division of the counti \ 
a joke, we, like France, might have been liable 

(1) Dulture, Esquissea Hiatoriquea, Urn. iv. y. > 



427 

to the prolonged establishment of a military de- 
spotism. Had we trifled and diverted ourselves 
with the awkward strides of James to arbitrary 
power, we should never have attained the honour 
of resisting that power, which all but crushed 
Europe under the iron arm of Buonaparte. 

The distinctive peculiarities of the French 
character were never more remarkably exhibited 
than during the different phases of their eventful 
Revolution. Extremes of the most opposite 
qualities seemed often to meet in their mind, 
and a strange and unnatural alliance to have 
taken place between thoughtless frivolity and 
premeditated crime. 

After the acceptation of the constitution of 
1793? and the attempted establishment of a re- 
publican government, the manners, dress, phrase- 
ology, names, amusements, all partook of the 
exaggerated spirit of the times. The same ab- 
sence and neglect of moral truth which had 
necessitated the destruction of the old govern- 
ment, founded on the false principles of arbitrary 
power, now undermined every attempt to esta- 
blish another, founded on the true principles of 
civil liberty. The conduct of the demagogues, 
who successively floated at the top of this incon- 
gruous mass of matter in violent fermentation, 



428 

was an exaggeration of their own exaggerated 
opinions. 

A St. Just, adopting the most extravagant 
paradox of Rousseau, professed to believe men to 
be only happy in a savage state, living in huts 
and forests ; and avowed the design of en- 
deavouring, by the extermination of a great 
majority of the present generation, and by the 
destruction of all the institutions of civilisation, 
to restore mankind to that desired state. 

A Chaumette and a II chert insisted on the 
Bishop of Paris and his chaplains, under pain of 
death, abjuring publicly the Christian religion, 
and all their functions, at the bar of the National 
Convention (1); and on the same day I 
passed in the Convention, declaratory of their 
non-belief in the existence of a God, and cli 
ing a committee, to report on the means of sub- 



(1) The speech of Gobel, the revolutionary Bishop of 
Taiis, on this occasion, as given by Dulaure. does not, after 

all, announce his disbelief in the doctrines he had preached, 

hut his adhesion to the will of the people, in ceasing his 

functions, as his fust and paramount duty. In the same 
sitting of the convention, however, another priest (not of 
the clergy of Paris) declares directly, M Que la religion 
" qu'il professoit depuis son enfance, n'avoit pour base que 
" renew et le mensonge." — Monitt'ur y November 10. 1 



429 . 

stituting the public worship of reason in the place 
of any other rite. 

A Couthon and a Collot d'Herbois undertook 
by a commission from assembled France, in her 
National Convention, to destroy and annihilate 
the city of Lyons ! The Convention thought, 
or pretended to think, and the wretches they 
employed believed, that to annihilate a city of 
above a hundred thousand industrious inhabit- 
ants, which had subsisted for eighteen centuries, 
was as much within their power as within their 
will. (1) 

Now that time has somewhat softened the 
feelings of horror excited by these insane inten- 
tions, and by the savage means used to put them 
in execution, we look back with undivided sur- 
prise to their excessive folly ; and our astonish- 
ment is as much excited by the political ignor- 
ance and cowardice of the persons who ac- 



(1) Great re-unions of men in cities are no more to be 
dispersed than to be assembled by the breath or the arm of 
arbitrary power. Catherine the Second of Russia, in her 
pompous journey to the Crimea, founded cities every day. 
The Emperor Joseph of Austria, her companion and assist- 
ant, aware of the nullity of their proceedings, remarked on 
one of these occasions, that he, as well as the Empress, had 
completed a great work on the day he spoke, as she had laid 
the first stone of a city, and he the last. 



430 



quiescedin such measures, as to the presumption 
of the monsters who undertook their execution. 

In the midst of these sombre and appalling 
crimes, which seemed to cloud the whole horizon 
of human existence, and at the same time to 
attempt destroying all hopes of any other ; sur- 
rounded by such circumstances, and occupied 
by such considerations as might well be sup- 
posed to engross the whole ideas, both of the 
actors and of their victims ; we find the same 
persons, at the same moment, engaged in con- 
verting the church of Notre Dame into a theatre, 
where, with the decorations, the machinery, and 
the actors of the opera, they celebrated the first 
institution of La Jvtc de la liaison, and the 
dedication of the church to the worship of this 
metaphysical abstraction. As the fete had taken 
place by order of the Municipality of Paris, all 
of whose members had assisted at it, and on the 
very day that the Convention had been occupied 
in receiving the abjuration of the bishop, ami 
voting the abolition of the Christian religion (1), 
a second Feast of Reason was acted over on the 
evening of the same day, for the especial benefit 
of the members of the Convention. 

These members of the Convention, who were 

(1) November 10. 1795, 



431 

all either accusers or accused, and were falling 
in succession under the guillotine which they had 
prepared for their neighbour — these men w T ere 
employed changing the names, they none of 
them could hope to bear long, from the Christian 
appellations of John, James, and Peter, to those 
of some sage or hero of antiquity. (1) 

France was full of Aristideses, Anaxagorases, 
Fabriciuses, and Brutuses, habited in pantaloons, 
in short waistcoats with sleeves, and without a 
coat, called d la Carmagnole — their hair cut 
short, a scarlet night-cap on their heads, a 
elub stick in their hands, to which those who 



(1) The names of all the towns, villages, and streets 
which recalled any title of the abolished government, or 
any saint of the abolished calendar, were likewise changed 
to some republican designation, like Villeneuve le peuple,&c. 
A witness on a trial, and this witness a minister of finance, 
begged to be allowed to conceal his Christian name : on 
being told it must indispensably be known, he replied, " Je 
M le profere a regret ce pr£nom, cest Louis" 

The inhabitants of the valley of Montmorency beg to 
represent to the Convention, " Que toujours plein du sou- 
" venir touchantde Timmortel auteur d'Emile et du Contrat 
" Social, ils demandent que le nom de J. J. Rousseau, ou de 
" ses ouvrages, soit ajoute a celui de leur ville. Votre comite* 
" a pense que c'6toit une occasion de faire disparoitre un 
" nom qui rappelle des idees de royaute et de feodalit^, en 
" consequence il vous propose, de decreter que cette ville au 
"lieu du nom de Montmorency prendra, ainsi que la vallee, 
•< le nom d'Emile." — Moniteur, October 29. 1793. 



432 

were disposed to foppery in this costume added 
sabots. 

The women were obliged by a decree of the 
Convention to wear the national cockade osten- 
sibly on their hat or cap, without which they 
could not be admitted into any place of public 
resort. Their hair, undressed, was left to fall on 
their back, and was combed flat on their fore- 
head; rouge was entirely banished (1) ; any body 
daring to wear it in public would have drawn on 
themselves the opprobrious title of a muscadine, 
and the penalty of abuse (if nothing worse) at- 
tached to it. 

As it was, the women seem to have sometimes 
exercised a too severe police over the dress of 
their own sex ; for we find in the Moniteur 
of the «9th October 1793, " On admet a la 
" barre une deputation de citoyennes, qui pre- 
" sentent une petition par laquelle elles se 
" plaignent de femmes pretendues revolution- 
" naires, qui out voulu les forcer a porter le 
11 bonnet rouge. Elles demandent la liberte de 
" leur costume." Their demand was granted ; a 



(1) And, happily for female beauty, has never been re- 
stored to the excess to which it had been carried, when a 
round splotch of red on each cheek, however naturally 
blooming, was considered as a necessary part of full dr 



433 



more serious discussion having taken place about 
the same time in the municipal council of Paris, 
whether the constituted authorities of the 
country were alone to wear the red cap, or 
whether its use was to be permitted to all the 
world. The privilege was made general by the 
same council, who had the day before issued a 
formal decree against the black wigs d la Ja- 
cobine. 

At these fooleries their sober neighbours 
across the Channel looked with contempt, and 
could not persuade themselves, that a repre- 
sentative assembly, debating on such trifles, and 
a people occupied in them, could ever effect any 
thing really great. They therefore beheld with 
astonishment their armies conquering, and their 
principles spreading every day. The aristocracy 
of England, taking up the matter with all the 
serious earnestness which belongs to the national 
character, began to deprecate the possible ef- 
fects of a threatened invasion, and of a demo- 
cratical revolution in the English government. 
The severe pecuniary sacrifices required in sup- 
port of the successive alliances against France 
had, indeed, excited much ill-will among those 
who had little property to defend, and became 
matter of most serious import to the whole 
nation. 

F F 



434 



CHAPTER IX. 

STATE OF ENGLAND FROM THE PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE 

TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

ACCESSION OF GEORGE THE THIRD — HIS EARLY CHA- 
RACTER AND CONDUCT. PROSPEROUS STATE OF THE 

COUNTRY. AMERICAN WAR, ITS EFFECTS. MR. PITT 

HIS CHARACTER HIS CONDUCT RESPECTING THE 

FRENCH REVOLUTION. ITS SOCIAL AND POLITICAL 

EFFECTS ON ENGLAND. MR. FOX HIS CHARACTER 

AND THAT OF ENGLISH SOCIETY AT HIS FIRST ENTRY 
INTO PUBLIC LIFE. 

From the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, the 
political history of England for the next forty 
years, till the dawning of the French Revolution, 
1788, however diversified by the usual alterna- 
tions of peace and war, presents tew facts ma- 
terially interesting to the sober eye of posterity. 
War, although ennobled by individual heroism, 
was marked by unnecessary defeats, and incon- 
clusive victories ; and peace, by political blunders 
and party intrigues, often contemptible in their 
means, insufficient in their end, and sometimes 
disastrous in their consequences. The good 
elicited from this condition of society was (as it 



4*35 

often happens in the affairs of men) quite inde- 
pendent of the intentions or the powers of the 
principal actors. Thus the American war, that 
infatuated struggle to prevent the only con- 
nexion of the mother country with her colonies 
of which their mutual relative situation could 
then admit, ended by securing, together with the 
independence of America, that connexion be- 
tween the two countries the most essentially 
advantageous to both. Thus the folly or ignor- 
ance of a minister of the crown, in taking notice 
of the ephemeral writings of a profligate indivi- 
dual (1), during a time of great party violence, 
produced a new security to the personal liberty of 
the subject, — a judicial declaration of the ille- 
gality of general warrants against the persons and 
papers of individuals, without specifying particu- 
larly the cause of their arrest. We cannot have 
a stronger proof of the absence of all really great 
interests, and of the violence with which party 
feelings at this time pervaded all classes of society, 
than the popularity and fame acquired by another 
occasional writer, whose libels, from being clothed 
in pure, strong, and condensed language, have 
survived their day. The Letters of Junius may 
still be consulted with advantage by those who 



(1) John Wilkes. 
F F 2 



43G 



wish to form to themselves a correct and forcible 
English style. But the subjects of complaint they 
denounce, their imputations on ministers, and the 
characters both that they attack and that they 
advocate, appear to us equally unworthy of the 
emphatic terms in which they are denounced, and 
of the magnifying glass applied to their conse- 
quences. Of one thing, however, they may 
satisfy us, — that as long as we preserve a constitu- 
tional monarchy and a popular government, no 
advantages of peace, no successes of commerce, 
no individual superiority of character, will ever 
lull to sleep the many watchful eyes that are al- 
ways intent on the conduct of the party in power, 
and ready to take advantage of the first improper 
bias in their government. 

A young king and queen had lately ascended 
the throne. To the great expectations always 
formed of a new government were in this instance 
added the hopes of all the social world, that a 
decided and desirable change would take place, 
from the dull habits of an old German Prince, 
to the gaiety of a young court, willing to give 
and to receive amusement. In these expect- 
ations every one was disappointed. 

George the Third had been educated by his 
mother in a retirement ill suited to form the 
manners or cultivate the character of the head 



437 

of a popular government. He had not been 
allowed to make acquaintance with the young 
men his contemporaries, with whom he was ne- 
cessarily to act, and by whom he was in future 
to govern. His mother, the Princess Dowager 
of Wales, although (as she tells Doddington) 
sensible how necessary it was that her son should 
keep company with men, knows not to whom 
to address herself. " What company could she 
" wish him to keep ? What friendships desire 
" he should contract ? Such was the universal 
" profligacy, and such the character and conduct 
" of the young people of distinction, that she 
" was really afraid to have them near her chil- 
« dren!" (1) 

She seems not to have been unaware of the do- 
mestic and (if we may be permitted the word) 
homely character of her son \ for in speaking to 
Doddington of a marriage likely to have been 
proposed for him during the life of his grand- 
father, George the Second, she again adverts to 
the necessity of his mixing in the world) that 
the marriage would prevent it ; that " he was 
" shy and backward ; the match would shut him 
" up for ever with two or three friends of his, 
" and as many of hers ***** that he was not a 



(1) George, Lord Doddington's Journal, p. 290. 
F F 3 



438 



" wild dissipated boy, but good-natured and 
" cheerful, with a serious cast upon the whole ; 
" that those about him knew him no more 
" than those who had never seen him ; that he 
" was not quick, but with those he was ac- 
" quainted applicable and intelligent." For 
such a character, in any other condition of 
human life, education might have done much ; 
but George the Third entered on his reign with 
the shyness of a school-boy in his manners, and 
reserve and suspicion in his mind. This pre- 
vented the possibility of his acquiring, by the 
habits of society and the practice of business, 
that knowledge of the world which might have 
supplied the dericiences of his education. Mar- 
ried within a year after his accession to the 
throne, to a princess as young as himself and 
still less accustomed to the great society to 
which she was called to preside, it was not in 
little parties made up of their own household 
that they could acquire a taste for the gak 
becoming their age and their station, or manners, 
that could ensure them popularity in their 
capital. 

Balls, such as those recorded by Horace Wal- 
pole in the first year of their marriage, " con- 
" sisting of not above twelve or thirteen couples, 
11 some of the lords of the bed-chamber, most 



439 

" of the ladies the maids of honour, and six 
" strangers. Nobody sat by but the Princess 
" (Dowager of Wales), the Duchess of Bed- 
" ford, and Lady Bute : they began before seven, 
" danced till one, and parted without a sup- 
" per." (1) Such balls must have given more 
offence to the many excluded from them, than 
pleasure to the few invited. As private indi- 
viduals, their lives were not only blameless, but 
exemplary. Happy in each other, and in the 
interest of a yearly-increasing family, they seem 
to have considered public business and public 
representation as a heavy tax imposed on their 
station, instead of their being the first and 
unalienable duties of it. This tax duly paid in 
two weekly drawing-rooms, and two yearly balls, 
the rest of their time was spent in a retirement 
which few of their opulent subjects were disposed 
to share with them. 

The court, instead of being looked up to by 
the young as a source of gaiety, by the hand- 
some as a scene of triumph, and by the fashion- 
able as necessary to the confirmation of their 
pretensions, was soon voted by all a duty, which 
was performed with a sort of contemptuous 
reluctance; a duty which in certain situations 

(1) Letters to G. Montague, p. 267. 
F F 4 



440 

of life it was necessary to pay, but from which 
they no more thought of deriving amusement 
than from a visit to their grandmother. No 
fashions emanated from a court, itself an enemy 
to show, and avoiding all occasions of represent- 
ation. The Windsor uniform produced none of 
the effects of the jus taucorps bleu of Louis the 
Fourteenth. To be distinguished by the sove- 
reigns, and to form a part of their small domestic 
circle, was considered as a sort of superannuation 
in the gay society of the metropolis. The young, 
who from the political situation of their parents 
were sometimes called to join it, escaped from 
the honour when they could, and never thought 
of founding their claims to success in the 
fashionable world on any reputation of favour at 
court. 

It was this early seclusion, and these retired 
habits, which had encouraged and embittered 
the charges of favouritism and back-stairs in- 
fluence, that so soon overcast the bright morning 
of the reign of George the Third. It was his 
singular fate, after having been (undeservedly) 
a most unpopular prince during his youth, to 
have entirely regained the affections of his 
people in after-life, without any change what- 
soever having taken place either in his principles, 
his character, or his manners. 



441 

When disease had created an excitation of 
spirits, and a love of public exhibitions and shows, 
which sat awkwardly on his age, the nation saw 
it with surprise, and those immediately interested 
in him with sorrow and regret. Still, such was 
the effect of a long life unsullied by any moral 
stain, by any selfish expenditure of public money, 
or any premeditated attempts at unconstitutional 
power, that his first recovery of reason, after a 
long alienation of it, was hailed as a national 
blessing ; and his final seclusion, and the ces- 
sation of his moral existence, lamented as a na- 
tional misfortune. 

The issue of the attempt in favour of the house 
of Stuart in 1745 had relieved us from any 
further contest for the throne. The conditions 
of the peace of 1763, however inferior to the 
exaggerated pretensions that the last year of the 
war had suggested, were such as left us all, and 
more than all, the jealousy of France and her 
great natural means would have allowed us to re- 
tain under any other circumstances than those 
in which she was placed. 

These advantages, protected by our free 
government, and secured by habits of order, 
industry, and public faith, threw great property 
into the hands of so many, that habits of ex- 
pence became general. Sums unheard of before 



442 



were laid out on houses, and gardens, and furni- 
ture. Prices unknown in other countries were 
given for objects of luxury. Thousands were 
expended and were betted on horses. Gaming 
of every description took place on a scale un- 
exampled in former times. An interchange was 
established between Paris and London of the 
mutual follies of each country. Together with 
an admiration of our political establishments 
and our parliament, our liberty of the press 
and our juries, France adopted our horse- 
races, our carriages, our saddles, and our morn- 
ing dress ; while w r e, with less reason, and less 
candour, continued affecting to despise the 
people whose fashions we implicitly followed in 
every article of ornamental luxury, and whose 
language became necessary to us, as their litera- 
ture became universal. So far from the desire, 
since so often unavailingly expressed, of being 
admitted into French society, persons used then 
to boast of their intention of going to Paris, 
merely to look at pretty things, and to make 
expensive purchases, determined to avoid hav- 
ing any thing unnecessary to do with the na- 
tives. 

Our young men inundated Europe. Every 
one supposed to receive the education of a gentle- 
man was now sent abroad after be had left 



443 

college, often attended by some guardian of his 
conduct and morality, to whose care they had 
been committed at Oxford or Cambridge. Out 
of the precincts of his college, the tutor was 
often as ignorant as his pupil : the first lived in 
no society at all, and the latter in bad. The 
large allowance of money, made to many of 
these young tourists by their parents, not only 
frustrated the hope of their taking any trouble to 
gain admittance into good company, but often 
exposed them to the danger of becoming the 
dupes of improper companions. Pope had already 
adverted to such travellers in his day, as worthy 
a place in the Dunciad, where he makes his 
goddess thus describe them : 

" Led by my hand, he saunter'd Europe round, 

" And gather'd every vice on Christian ground ; 

" Saw every court, heard every king declare 

" His royal sense of operas or the fair ; 

" Tried all hors-d'oeuvres, all liqueurs defined, 

" Judicious drank, and greatly daring dined ; 

" Dropp'd the dull lumber of the Latin store, 

" Spoil'd his own language, and acquired no more." 

Dunciad, Book iv. 

To all these habits of extravagant expenditure, 
the American war (which absorbed all the re- 
dundancies of the anterior peace) put a stop. 
No more was heard of fetes champetres costing 
15,000/. \ no more of kitchen-gardens, whose 



444 



yearly expence was 6000/. ; no more of bills with 
tailors for thousands; no more of sums so great 
and property so considerable depending on the 
cast of a die, that the gainer dared not profit by 
more than half of his good luck. 

After the peace of 1783, which assured the in- 
dependence of America, the nation had returned 
(according to the old proverb) by poverty to in- 
dustry, and by industry once again to the whole- 
some enjoyment of well-acquired riches, when 
an attack on all property was sounded so loudly 
and so near, that the " proximus ardet Ucaly- 
" gon " might well frighten those, who in the 
quiet possession of what remained to them from 
their ancestors, or what their own exertions had 
acquired, felt they had little to gain and every 
thing to lose by a change. 

The French Revolution found England in a 
state of unexampled prosperity. To the ampu- 
tation of her American colonies, which the em- 
pirics to whose counsels she trusted had la- 
boured with idiot obstinacy to prevent, her ene- 
mies had obliged her to submit. To her ene- 
mies, therefore, and not to her own resolution, 
she owed the immediate and rapid recovery of 
her political strength, which took place from the 
peace which declared the independence of 
America. 



445 



The councils of England were from that 
period directed by a man not less remarkable 
from his abilities, than from the times in which 
he was called on to exert them ; not less dis- 
tinguished by his inheritance of the talents of a 
statesman, than for his own early display of them. 

Mr. Pitt, at the age of twenty-three, unsullied 
by the vices, and unoccupied by the follies of 
his age, was almost at his first outset in political 
life placed at the head of the government of his 
country, during a period of peace and pros- 
perity. He was soon surrounded in parliament 
and in society by his contemporaries at college, 
who in their own or their parents' estimation 
were all incipient statesmen. Tattersall's and 
Newmarket were neglected for White's and the 
House of Commons ; and every day produced 
new prodigies, who were already great orators 
at Eton, and profound politicians before they 
left Christ Church or Trinity. A fashion, for a 
fashion it became, which encouraged occupation 
and mental acquirements, and depreciated trifling 
or popular amusements, certainly favoured those 
habits of domestic order and private virtues 
which seem peculiarly to belong to the sober, 
serious mind of the English nation. 

On this score, we have more obligation to 



446 

the character and long public career of Mr. 
Pitt, and to its effects on his contemporaries, 
than will be owned, or probably will be per- 
ceived, till the events of his political life, and 
the prominent features of the times to which 
he belongs, are viewed in a more distant per- 
spective. 

But here, alas ! the good effects of the emu- 
lation he excited will be found to cease. To 
his young associates it was easier to be foolishly 
bustling than to be seriously employed ; to 
affect financial jargon than to acquire clear 
ideas of finance ; and to make long speeches 
than to possess that fund of matter and that 
power of words which distinguished the flowing, 
inexhaustible, although often inconclusive, elo- 
quence of their model. Unfortunately, too, for 
them and for himself, this model, from his early 
immersion in public business, from his never 
having been a spectator, but always an actor on 
the great theatre of the world (perhaps, too, 
from his home education), seldom recurred, in 
his measures, to those enlarged views of human 
policy, to those first great principles of mutual 
obligation, on which all human contracts must 
be founded or must fail. He seemed rarely 
to calculate what was or what was not abso- 



447 

lutely due to expediency in the application 
of these principles to the conduct of the affairs 
of men. The whole history of his Jong admi- 
nistration is a series of proofs of these deficiencies, 
in spite of his great and splendid talents, his 
powers of thought and combination, and all 
the inspirations of his high-minded ambition. 
Hence proceeded his defective judgment of 
the real relative situation of his country, with 
respect to the other nations of Europe. His 
friend (1), in defending his memory, declared, 
that his last continental confederacy against 
France " was one of the most splendid efforts 
" that ever emanated from the human intellect 
" for the salvation of Europe." His friend be- 
lieved what he said ; Mr. Pitt believed it also ; 
it was neither ambition nor interest that thus 
blinded him, but a neglect to combine, or an in- 
ability to calculate, those great leading motives, 
which have in all times with a varying but ine- 
vitable force acted on the minds of men. 

To this neglect or inability was united an 
ignorance of the personal and individual pe- 
culiarities of the characters successively in- 
fluencing the destinies of Europe. With his 



(1) The late Lord Londonderry. 



448 

powerful talents and sagacious intellect, such 
ignorance could not have existed had he ever 
lived in any society but a ministry or an opposi- 
tion, or had ever travelled farther than from 
Downing Street to Holwood. Thus, unac- 
quainted with other countries, and wholly ab- 
sorbed in wielding the powerful means of his 
own, the French Revolution burst on a states- 
man peculiarly ill-fitted to calculate either the 
sufficiency of its causes, the momentum of its 
present effects, or the magnitude and extension 
of its consequences, 

Two opinions soon manifested themselves in 
England on the subject : the one considering 
the French Revolution as the dawning of a more 
perfect system of political existence over all the 
world ; the other, as an open attempt at the sub- 
version of all established institutions. To the 
first party, England appeared tottering on its 
basis ; and viewed by the dazzling light of the 
new philosophy, seemed to present only the cor- 
rupted, shaken, and exhausted remains of that 
admirable constitution apparently made for 
eternity, — which, with every means of self- 
correction and principle of renovation within 
itself; thus perishing of caducity in little more 
than a hundred years after its complete establish- 
ment, appeared only to offer a new assurance 



449 

of the impossibility of permanence to any insti- 
tution of man. 

It soon became matter of difficult determin- 
ation how to deal with the ardour of the 
moment. The minds of all the thinking classes 
of men seemed to be undergoing some great 
change, and some new system of social order to 
be struggling into existence, opposed by all the 
obstinate rancour of prejudice, and encouraged 
by all the heedless enthusiasm of novelty. 
Under these circumstances, the course to be 
pursued by government through the contending 
opinions of the day, and the aid to be afforded 
or the resistance opposed to the party already 
acting on these opinions in France, became a 
great question of national policy. Mr. Pitt 
conceived it necessary to stem the torrent of 
popular feeling. The consequences were, a 
reaction so violent, that England owed its in- 
ternal tranquillity during these times much more 
to the suicidal efforts of liberty at her first 
appearance in France, than to any of the 
measures adopted to prevent her excesses being 
copied at home. 

Opinions, which attacked not only the ad- 
ministration but the existence of all monarchical 
government, were no longer confined to theory 
and to the obscurity of speculative politicians, 

G G 



450 

but walked forth in broad day, and were heard 
in our streets and highways. All princes in- 
discriminately, together with all their ministers 
and adherents, were designated as malevolent 
beings, whose evil desires were only bounded 
by their contemptible faculties. To submit to 
their government, to receive their orders, or to 
execute their will, was considered as disgraceful 
to the dignity of man. From the degradation in- 
duced by the long habit of such abuses, recovery 
could only be effected by a total change in every 
thing comprehended in the political existence 
of mankind ; — by obtaining a more equal division 
of property, a perfect equality of rights, and a 
new system of their administration. 

The jargon of revolutionised France, on 
subjects of which her former language afforded 
not even the terms, was adopted by Englishmen, 
to whom nothing new could arise in political 
discussion. If the fever of the times had 
allowed them to consult the remonstrances of 
the parliaments of Charles the First, they would 
have found they had nothing either to learn or 
to borrow on these subjects, whether treating of 
general principles or of their particular applica- 
tion : but in the universal epidemy which now 
prevailed, all precedents were despised, and aD 
experience rejected. 



451 

When France declared the Rights of ma?i f 
abolished arbitrary imprisonments, destroyed 
the buildings appropriated to their use, and 
insisted on the establishment of a representative 
government, England went hand and heart with 
her in her innovations. But when she dipped 
her hands in blood, " cried havock, and let slip 
the " demon of anarchy and individual vengeance 
under the mask of public virtue, England stood 
aloof, and rejected her offered fraternity. 

At a former period of our history, the violent 
measures taken by Louis the Fourteenth at the 
revocation of the edict of Nantes had served to 
ripen and confirm the necessity of the Revolution 
of 1688 ; so now the atrocious violences which 
accompanied the progress of the French Revolu- 
tion eventually served to steady and strengthen 
the established government of England. 

It remains yet a question for history to deter- 
mine whether the armed opposition of the 
government of England, and her hostile con- 
federacies with the other nations of Europe 
against the revolutionary doctrines of France, 
were necessary to prevent their dissemination at 
home ; — whether the intervention of strangers, 
the imprudent declarations of foreign sovereigns, 
their threats, uttered in defiance of certain mea- 
sures, and Europe combined in arms to force its 
g g °Z 



452 

decisions on a great and powerful country, did not 
materially contribute to the monstrous excesses 
into which that country soon fell, the monstrous 
doctrines which her leaders soon announced, and 
the universal rebellion to which her public 
language excited ; — whether France left to her- 
self, unthreatened, unprovoked, unattacked, 
would not have satisfied herself with such 
changes in her government, as would not have 
cost the life of her least offending monarch, nor 
produced the hideous crimes which preceded 
and followed his death ; — whether in case 
of the continuation of political disturbances in 
France, and anarchy and confusion still aris- 
ing from her ill-directed efforts, such a state 
would not have been less dangerous, less pre- 
judicial to that of all the other members of 
the European republic, than attacks which 
served at once to combine the strength of 
France, to exhaust that of her opponents, and to 
save her national character from the degrad- 
ation into which her excesses had plunged her ; 
— finally, whether the portentous meteor which 
at last arose in her stormy atmosphere would 
ever have extended its baleful influence, so as 
to have endangered the independent existence 
of Europe, had her resources not been found 
exhausted, her leaders discouraged, and her 



453 

people discontented by ill-directed and unavail- 
ing exertion. The solution of these questions 
belongs not to the present work, which must 
confine itself to noticing the extraordinary 
effects produced on the political feeling and 
language of England by the state of France. 
The rapidity of the events to which it gave rise, 
and their great and immediate consequences, 
soon left far behind all the prognostics, prophe- 
cies, and calculations of the elder politicians of 
the day, who beheld first with incredulity, then 
with astonishment, and lastly with terror, the 
extraordinary scene developing before them. 
At every new crisis which took place in its 
bloody and eventful progress, they vainly endea- 
voured to assure the world and themselves of 
the impossibility of the continued existence of a 
country under such and such circumstances, and 
the necessary and inevitable ruin that must ensue 
from such and such measures. The proximity of 
the scene of action allowed these satisfactory 
visions to be of short duration. From an excess 
of confidence they ran into an excess of fear. The 
language of youthful enthusiasm in a country 
accustomed to a century of constitutional liberty, 
inflamed and excited in clubs, They considered 
as the voice and sentiments of the English 
nation, in correspondence and in unison with 
g g 3 



4.54 

the wild declamation and extravagant plans of 
the neophytes of French independence. 

When France with puerile impatience abo- 
lished by a single undiscussed vote an aristocracy 
known only to the lower orders of her society 
by its privileges and by its insolence, They 
trembled for a peerage, whose equality of 
rights, and circumscribed privileges, were, like 
the throne it supported, unrestrained only in 
the power of doing good. When France, adopt- 
ing the long-decried nonsense of republican 
Rome, debated on an agrarian law, in a coun- 
try where exclusive taxes had made the great 
landholders invidious to the rest of the people, 
They trembled for the security of property in 
England, where its more equal distribution and 
equal burthens had long been the boast of 
the country. When France, disgusted with the 
conduct and indignant at the riches of a church, 
whose highest dignities were almost exclusively 
bestowed on the younger sons of nobles; a 
church which had abandoned the simplicity of 
former times, without abandoning any of the 
bigotry or puerilities which belonged to them ; 
when France, in the hour of her madness, dis- 
graced herself by allowing a band of apostate 
priests to throw off in her name not only her reli- 
gion, but her God, They anticipated the destruc- 



466 

tion of a church, whose ministers had incurred no 
opprobrium, and whose dignitaries, at that very 
time, had been more than half of them raised, 
by their learning and piety, from the middle 
and lower orders of society. 

Since the last unsuccessful struggle of the 
house of Stuart, the language of England on 
subjects of government and politics had been 
decidedly and generally liberal. Those who 
continued to act or to think like Tories, spoke 
like Whigs, Any other language would have 
been unseemly, in what was called good com- 
pany, and would have been still more reprobated 
among the people. All boys left our public 
schools Whigs ; all statesmen professed to be 
so ; ministers refused the designation of cour- 
tiers, and courtiers talked of the liberties, the 
privileges, and the authority of the people, 
as the foundations on which their own were 
secured. The rapid progress of the French 
Revolution entirely changed this language : 
sentiments that it would have been disgraceful 
not to have professed in a constitutional mon- 
archy, were now stigmatised with the name of 
democratical. 

Mr. Pitt, strongly impressed himself with the 
supposed dangers of the moment, and taking 
advantage of the fears it inspired, soon rallied 
g g 4 



456 

the great majority of the nation to his opinions, 
and left those whose sentiments and language 
remained unchanged, and those (much the 
greatest number) whose minds were attacked by 
the epidemical madness of the day, to bear the 
evil reputation of being enemies to the constitu- 
tion, to the religion, and to the establishments of 
their country. The party-spirit unavoidable in 
a representative government soon numbered all 
those in the House of Commons voting in opposi- 
tion to the opinions and measures of the minister 
among the abettors or approvers of the excesses 
of France. Pledges of the future intentions of 
English statesmen were sought for in their 
opinions on the affairs of a foreign nation, and 
on the conduct to be pursued with respect to it. 
Individuals long united, not only in political but 
private friendship, differed and separated on 
these points. The all-accomplished mind of 
Burke, yielding to the fears induced by his too 
lively imagination, and the horror inspired by 
crimes which seemed approaching the proscrip- 
tions of pagan Rome, raised his eloquent voice, 
and sounded notes of fearful reprehension to such 
of his friends as yet supposed any thing but 
anarchy could ever arise in France, and who saw 
not in her unopposed career an age of barbarism 
overwhelming Europe. 



457 

Mr. Fox, whose political opinions were con- 
sidered as the voice of his party, differed from 
his friend, with a steadiness creditable to his 
judgment, and with a regret which did honour 
to his heart. When Mr. Burke thought proper 
intemperately to renounce his friendship, on 
account of his opinions respecting France, the 
members of the House of Commons, where the 
scene took place, were generally and deeply 
affected at witnessing the tears of tenderness 
shed by Mr. Fox for the loss of that friendship ; 
— while he openly and gratefully acknowledged 
all the advantages his mind had long received 
from it. (1) He continued to remonstrate in 
vain against repeated continental coalitions 
which succeeded only in establishing the mili- 
tary power of France, and weakening the means 
of Europe to resist her ; while England indi- 
vidually lost one by one her allies, who sunk 
under the exasperated enemy from whom she 
had vainly promised to defend them. 

The capacious mind, enlarged views, and 
liberal principles of Mr. Fox, having, unfortu- 
nately for his country, been generally displayed 
in the ranks of parliamentary opposition, have 



(1) See account of the scene in the House of Commons, 
in Moore's Life of Sheridan. 



458 

left us ignorant of the measures he would have 
adopted in these difficult circumstances, and 
whether he would have found it possible to avoid 
the errors he so ably attacked in his political 
opponents. He had risen to manhood when the 
national prosperity of England (as we have 
already remarked) seems to have had a decided 
effect on individual character and manners. 

A carelessness about money, and a wanton 
disbursement of it, had become, not only a habit, 
but a fashion among the young in the higher 
orders of society. An indulgence in all that 
money can procure, and a total indifference as 
to the funds producing it, were considered as the 
characteristics of a noble, independent, generous 
mind. The niggard was obliged to affect extra- 
vagance, and lovers of order neglect ; so general 
were become habits of unlimited expence. The 
disorder in which such conduct naturally in- 
volved the pecuniary affairs of every one, was to 
be met with equal indifference ; and those who 
timely stopped in the mad career, or who seemed 
afflicted by the consequences of not having done 
so, were equally stigmatised as spiritless, narrow- 
minded beings. 

In such circumstances, a young man endowed 
with the character and with the brilliant abilities 
of Mr. Fox, encouraged from his infancy by 



4£9 

fond parents, who justly estimated that character 
and those abilities, but had neglected all whole- 
some control over either; such a young man 
may well be excused on his first entry into life, 
at an age when most of his contemporaries were 
still at college, for having plunged deep in the 
stream of fashionable follies. His manly cha- 
racter, his accomplished mind, his classical ac- 
quirements, his taste for poetry and literature, 
his social talents, his love of pleasure, and, per- 
haps above all, the unalterable sweetness of his 
temper, had endeared him to all his intimates at 
school and at college. The early developement 
of his political principles, and of his acute, mas- 
culine, and conclusive eloquence in their support, 
secured him the admiration and attachment of 
all the best understandings and most distin- 
guished characters of his country. Nor can we 
wonder that thus early remarkable, no less for 
his abilities and eloquence than for his dissipation 
and excesses, he should have materially influ- 
enced the society in which he lived, and given 
weight to the opinions which he espoused and 
the party to which he belonged. This influence 
was of no wholesome nature. He was imitated 
in his excesses by those who could copy him in 
nothing else ; and his misconduct encouraged 
and justified in their own eyes that of hundreds, 



460 



whose abilities entitled them to no such indul- 
gence. 

To his political party were aggregated those 
whose follies and extravagance in the outset 
of life induced them to take refuge under a 
leader, who unfortunately had lost all right 
of selection, or reproof. The parliamentary 
circumstances of the times, which opposed to 
each other two rival leaders of very different 
characters, and of well-balanced ability, so in- 
creased the social as well as political influence 
of the popular party, that, on the entry of any 
young man into life, its attraction was dreaded 
by all sober-minded parents. Adopting the 
politics and opinions of those in opposition to the 
measures of government, was considered by the 
old and the timid as adopting at the same time 
the excesses of their leader, and the morals of 
his associates. He might have been addressed 
like the frail fair-one of Horace : 

" Te suis matres metuunt juvencis 
" Te senes parci, miseraeque nuper 
" Virgines nuptae, tua ne retardet 

" Aura maritos." 

And let it not be supposed that these early ex- 
cesses had no marked, no decisive influence on 
his own future fame and character. The time 
he lost in nightly orgies of play, and the habit of 



4(3 1 

mind inseparable from such baleful dissipation, 
prevented his intellect from ever attaining that 
superiority of perception, and disabled it from 
that intensity of thought, of which it was so 
capable. 

When his young admirers celebrated the elo- 
quence of a speech in the House of Commons, 
made after a sleepless night spent at the gaming- 
table, with no other refreshment to exhausted 
nature than a wet napkin applied to his heated 
brow, more intelligent friends lamented having 
been thus deprived of the inspirations of such a 
powerful intellect to an unfatigued body and an 
unharassed mind. 

Austerely pure as to political independence, 
the extravagance of his youth obliged him, in 
maturer life, to accept of pecuniary assistance 
from the generosity of his party. A measure 
which must have been much more agreeable to 
the feelings of those who proposed than of him 
who profited by it. 

Nor was this the only point in which the 
tenour of his life and character suffered from the 
licence of his youth. An unrestrained pursuit 
of pleasure, which had sometimes trespassed 
on admissible limits, deprived him of all finer 
feelings of preference in his commerce with the 
other sex. The ease of his temper, and the 



462 

carelessness of his disposition, seemed to have 
blunted his natural acuteness on these subjects ; 
and led him to squander away in after life the 
treasures of an inexhaustibly affectionate disposi- 
tion with hardly more discretion than he had 
shown during the ardour of youth. 

This culpable carelessness, for culpable it must 
be called, was not entirely confined to social life. 
It sometimes influenced his judgment in poli- 
tical measures and appointments, and, as a public 
man, deprived him of that broad-based confi- 
dence in the sober opinion of the majority of 
his countrymen, which both his principles and 
his abilities were formed to inspire ; but failing 
to obtain, a colour of faction was sometimes given 
to an opposition which was generally both whole- 
some and expedient. The country was thus for 
long deprived of his public services, not from 
any want of due admiration of his talents, not 
from any neglect of the liberality of his political 
sentiments, but from his reputed moral conduct 
startling those unequal to embrace the compass 
of his abilities. 

THE END. 



London : 

Printed by A. 8c R. Spottisw oode. 

New- Street- Square. 




%jM 



V 



'^2 



